And This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef.

Well, well, well...

Sorry, the record skipped. I meant to use just one "well". As in, I went to the doctor today and all is well.

Well...

I have a touch of something called sciatica. That's causing the aching and discomfort in my legs. Basically, it was as I feared - I sit on my loud, ample butt in front of the computer(s) too much. I need to move around a lot more.

Sciatica. Sounds like a maximum security prison to me... actually, I could use a little solitary confinement lately. As long as I can bring my computer with me... I need to focus on firing out projects.

Other than that, business as usual today. Running around on errands, darting into the rug shop, drinking an energy drink (a Monster this time), crashing at about 6pm, taking a power nap, working like a fool.

I did take time to whip out another TV Spoof comic.



As you can see, the "change one letter" rule has already been tossed out the window. I was going to make Lost into "List" and have Santa crashed on an island, in a tattered santa suit, consulting his "naughty/nice list" to see who to trust on the island, but it would require drawing original material... if I'm going to do that, I might as well do a traditional Wagnervana strip. I was going to make it "Last" and have only one person left on the island, going "hey, where is everybody? Hello?" but that wasn't funny. And of course, I briefly contemplated putting a scantily-clad shot of Evangeline Lily, no text, and making the show called "Lust". But that would have offended half my readership... and calling it "Lest" while having the cast talking in King James English would have been too esoteric, methinks...

Ah, such are the trials and tribs of your average comic strip (f)artist! In spite of all that contemplation, it still took me less than an hour to complete this one. I'm getting lazy in my old age.

Here is a video you have to see to believe. It starts off slow... watch a bit to get the gist, then skip ahead to about the 1:40 mark.


Dueling Banjos Played With Hands Only

How does one discover that one has such a talent as that, I wonder? He was pretty on-pitch, for the most part as well. Crazy.

Getting ready for our trip to New Mexico. Hope I can get all I need to get done... uh... done before we have to leave. Otherwise, I'll have to take work with me. Wait! Then I can call it a business trip and write off all the expenses! It's brilliant! My expenses will be much less thanks to the combined efforts of my Dad (for loaning me his vehicle for the trip - don't have to rent one), my Sister (who arranged lodging for us on our two stop-over nights in Phoenix, there and back) and Mother In Law (for arranging lodging for us while we are out there). Other than gas and food, I don't foresee any other expenses.

Although last time out there, I bought my MacBook Pro... who knows? I may come back with a new iMac or something! Another business expense! I think I can find room for another iMac on my desk... hang on, let me reference yesterday's picture of my desk...

O_O Forget it!

I watched a documentary on YouTube today about the 2004 tsunami. Crazy stories. "This is So-and-So... he lost 16 members of his immediate family, including all of his kids, his wife, his parents, his brothers..." I'm like, DANG. Losing one family member is devastating. How many years of numbness lay ahead for a person that loses that many people? I guess it's similar to the Holocaust, I guess. I hate that people have to go through stuff like that. I would prevent it if I could.

Of course, that segues into the philosophical discussion about God, and why He lets stuff like that happen to people if He has the ability to prevent it. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and walk away silent. How do you answer that question? I have grappled with it for years, and I still have no satisfactory answer. I keep resting on the idea that there is an adequate answer that I have yet to learn, and that when I hear it, I'll go, "Oh. Well, that makes sense. Thanks." and that will be that. Until then, I have no response that comes close to taking the edge off of that level of pain.

HARSH SEGUE! OUCH!

I was in the car today coming back from the rug shop, and I had the 13 year old and the 3 year old with me. We were getting on the freeway at Miramesa Blvd, crawling up towards the metered light. Two cars ahead of us, a dude runs the red light and goes for it. The 13 year old says "Hey, that guy ran a red light". The 3 year old says, "He ran a red light? Ha ha! What a tool!"

I laughed for quite some time. I'm afraid that's one I taught her, indirectly. It's amazing what they pick up. You don't normally hear a three year old call someone a tool...

Here's a movie quote, worth 5 points if you Google it first, 25 points if you know it without needing Google:

"Whoa. You wanna throw up here or you wanna throw up in the car?"

"I think... Both."

Todayve In History: May 5th
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- May 5, 1904: Cy Young throws baseball's first ever Perfect Game. (He pitched naked. The other team was too freaked out to hit the ball.)

- May 5, 1921: Coco Chanel introduces Chanel no. 5. (Chanel No. 2 smelled like crap.)

- May 5, 1936: Italian Troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (I don't have a joke here; I just like saying "Addis Ababa".)

Addis Ababa always reminds me of Ned Beatty in the first Superman movie. If you know what I'm refering to, you are an even bigger nerd than I am.

Until tomorrow, remember, a penny saved is one cent.

Now, With Twice the Oregano!

Another week grinds to a conclusion, and as usual, it's a good thing I had my seatbelt fastened - a couples times during the week, I might have got thrown out!

Double-duty at church again today, no surprise there. You do what you gotta do, you know? Yanni gave me something to think about today... we were in the upper room this morning, doing our video taping thing as usual, and he referenced something I said in a blog post earlier in the year, saying I made it seem like doing the video room thing was a drudgery and hard and a duty, etc. etc. He mentioned this to me as I sat there in my chair, playing word search puzzles on my DSlite, feet up on the desk, as he and Laythe handled the duties for me. After the initial sting of the realization wore off, I pondered it. I have a response, but I'm not all that proud of it.

I don't really care anymore.

I used to take a lot of pride in what went on upstairs, and cared much more about the end result than I do now. As with just about everything church-related, I've lost that spark, that motivator, that compelled me to take things seriously there, and give 100%. I guess I'm just in neutral, when it comes to the church. I'm not saying that's a positive - it's more a confession than anything. Not sure what to do about it, really. But I suppose I should amend my comments about the upper room activities. It certainly isn't "hard". It's more like a clubhouse than anything now. There's a lot of chatting and goofing around and candy-eating going on up there, and not much paying attention to what's going on downstairs.

I may need to change that. Funny the power of a little guilt, eh?

At this morning's service, we had a large group of visitors from a "sister church" in the Philipines, and among them was a gentleman who played "How Great Thou Art" on a saxophone, and (if you'll pardon the pun), it blew me away, it was so good. I couldn't get the video footage of it (I had to stop recording so I could save an hour on the master DVD for the sermon), but I was able to get an audio file of it. I'm editing it together with music as we speak, and I will upload it here as soon as it's done.

EDIT: Here it is. Give it a listen, eh. You don't have to watch the pics, just let it play in the background...

I am a multi-tasking machine today. Check out this picture:



Yes, I have all four of my computers on my desk at this moment, and yes, I am doing something on all of them at the same time. I minimized everything so that the wallpapers would show for the picture. In fact, I caught myself last night using two machines at once, literally, a mouse in each hand, head pivoting back and forth... that... is pathetic...

I promised I'd post a pic of my Eldest Daughter's fish tank a few days ago, so here it finally is, for what it's worth...



Had an adventure with her crab today, which we should rename Houdini (current name: Jim). First, we woke up in the morning to find one of her guppies wedged into her plastic coliseum ruins there in the pic. Wifey freed it but it died shortly thereafter. Must have been stuck all night. Anyway, it got flushed. Then Eldest Daughter noticed her crab was missing. We looked around and under everything in the tank, unable to believe it could get out of the tank itself. Couldn't find it, went to church, came back, looked some more. Long story short, we found it in the afternoon, walking in the hallway. It's not supposed to be out of the water, but it had been for several hours. We plopped it back in, it stayed motionless for so long we thought it was dead. It was probably just really tired from the ordeal. It seems to be recovering ok. Still have no clue how it managed to get out of the tank.

Gee, the excitement never ends, eh? I bet that is an example of the types of hard-hitting, riveting stories that you tune in to this blog to read about, yes?

I didn't make anywhere near as much progress on my pressing work-related items this weekend that I had wished. I have a full day tomorrow, including my long-awaited doctor's appointment, and a trip into the rug shop to take care of some financial bidness... Both of those will eat up hours I could be using for other "Need It Done Today" projects that are screaming for me, but it can't be helped. It's all important.

Todayve In History: May 4
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- May 4, 1494: Christopher Columbus lands in Jamaica. (We know how he celebrated, don't we, mon?)

- May 4, 1904: Construction begins by the US on the Panama Canal. (A man, a plan, a case of malaria, a... I forget how the rest goes...)

- May 4, 1953: Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer for The Old Man and the Sea. (Unfortunately, the sequel was 'The Old Man and the Shotgun.')

Laythe loaned me a book by an author named Terry Brooks called First King of Shannara. I have it lined up to read next, once I finish with this round of The Black Company.

Gonna head off for now. Lots of stuff in the works. I'm doing my best to keep y'all entertained.

Until tomorrow, remember, when in doubt, blame Laythe...

Remember When Chewbacca Won "Wookie of the Year"?

Greetings to y'all. A beautiful San Diego Saturday comes to a close, by all accounts a great day on many fronts.

Wifey's 40th birthday party was a success. Lots of people came, good food was eaten, socializing was done, gifts were given, pictures were taken, "happy birthday" was sung with vigor. A good time had by all (that I could see). My gift idea was approved of by all - score one for Dave, eh? Who would have thought, eh? I'm usually such a clueless gump when it comes to stuff like that...

Got some interesting work-related news today, which I'd love to share in detail, but I'm not sure it would make sense at this point. But it could be huge. In general, it involves a large, national cleaning & restoration firm wishing to enter into discussions with a certain local rug cleaning shop (with which I am intimately involved) for the purpose of perhaps purchasing said rug cleaning business. My mouth dropped open when I heard the news - we'll see how far and how fast things develop this month.

The other killer news regards a rug I mentioned waaay back in my very first post of the year. A rug that we obtained that turned out to be a rather rare and remarkable rug (man, a lot of alliteration today!) and that has made an interesting journey to an overseas auction house for an auction scheduled for later this month. The online catalog for the auction is up, and it's exciting to see the rug featured, and the great write-up they gave it. Here's a link if you'd like to take a peek at it. 4th rug from the top, lot 184.

So two big bits of news today, along with a great party! What more can one ask for, eh?



There's a cool piece of Assassin's Creed fan art that Vye recently linked me to. I have yet to play the game, but it is on my list of games to buy at some point. It's supposed to be good. Of course, unless I get it as a gift at some point this year, it will have to wait to the end of the year for me to buy it. Along with making a commitment to write in this blog every day for 2009, I also committed to not buying another game this year either. My motivation was not to punish myself (in either case!) but rather to try and get myself to play some of the games I already have bought, that I have either not played at all yet, or played just once or twice. Why buy more when great games are already nearby?

I did notice that Target had Call of Duty 4 down at $39.99 yesterday... I almost broke down and bought it, but I resisted the urge. Perhaps by January 1 of 2010, that game with be down to 19.99 or something.

What can I say? I'm a nerd/geek. Like these guys:



These nerds have a series of clips on YouTube of all the roller coasters at Six Flags here in southern california. Looks like a great ride. I haven't been on a roller coaster for a decade or so. I used to go to Six Flags every year with my brother Bryan and our step-dad when I was growing up. Used to love the coasters, like every other sane person in the world. But the last time I went was about a decade ago, and I almost passed out on the Batman rollercoaster. And I mean, right after the first dip/loop too. It was embarrassing. As I danced on the edge of consciousness for the rest of the (brief) ride, I had visions of being wheeled away on a stretcher, wife and friends looking at each other, puzzled, wondering how I could wuss out on such a relatively tame ride.

Afterwards, I found a bench and sat there, symbolically portraying my shift from coaster rider to old person sitting on a bench while everyone else had fun. The transition happened so fast! How sad.

I'm going to go back through all my recent posts and assemble a scoreboard for the "Identify the Movie Quote" mini-game and see where everyone stands. I'm pretty sure Bob is still in the lead, but others are moving up. Joseph wins points for yesterday's Hamlet quote.

My To-Do List is still a rampaging beast as of right now. I need to dig in and get some stuff done. In fact, I better go start in again right now.

Until tomorrow, remember, artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

A Little More Than Kin and Less Than Kind.

"Spanish" or "Spinach", which one?

Man, what a day. 

Started book 3 of the Chronicles of the Black Company last night. It's called The White Rose. Overall, the trilogy is a solid yarn that has me sufficiently hooked enough to move forward with it. Here's a review of the trilogy from Strange Horizons, if you'd like more info.

So I was up way later than I should have (no surprise there), and Maggie woke me up way earlier than I would have liked, so I'm kind of in zombie mode even now, as the day ends.

Ran some wifey's-birthday-related errands, in preparation for Saturday's party, and then took wife to see a movie she wanted to see called Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. I give it 5/10. Extremely unoriginal title, for starters. Overall, it was well-made, funny in places, predictable, cheap, banal, with spotty casting. Dang, McConaughey is a strikingly handsome dude. Obviously, I don't "lean that way", don't misunderstand, but man, does he have screen presence. I have no clue why Jennifer Garner was paired up with him in this film. She didn't look like she belonged in the movie at all, much less in the female lead role.

Some good supporting work from the rest of the cast. I'm surprised that the screenplay was written by two men. The moral of the film: Handsome, single men who sleep around are empty, soul-less jerks and the only cure is to admit you love your old childhood sweetheart, get married, settle down and live happily ever after. The structure is an homage to A Christmas Carol, with the requisite humor and dramatic monologues one would expect. 

Frankly, the movie angered me, though I'm not exactly comfortable explaining why in this forum. Perhaps if we were chatting one-on-one in Starbucks or something, I'd elaborate, but let me just say that this type of movie serves mostly to uncomfortably point out certain deficiencies in my own life. Nuff said.

The movie itself is not getting very well reviewed, but my wife really liked it, and I certainly didn't hate it. It has earned a spot on my ridiculously long list of "Movies I Don't Regret Watching But Will Likely Never Watch Again."

Wifey opened her present a few minutes ago, so I can spill it here now. I got her a relatively nice wallet and filled it with several $40 gift cards to her favorite stores, leaving some slots for the other cards I'm sure she will be getting at the party tomorrow. I don't expect her to use it as her main wallet - it's more of a glorified Gift Card Carrier than anything. 

By the way, I went to the doctor today, only to find that there was a scheduling mix-up, and I had been set for Thursday afternoon, not Friday afternoon. So I inadvertently missed it. I had to reschedule for Monday. More than mildly annoying...

Got zero feedback on my "quick and lazy" attempt at a comic yesterday - I had other ideas for more "1 Letter Variations," but since it seems to have went over like a lead balloon, I should probably forget it and stick to my more traditional strip(s).

Todayve In History: April 2

-------------------------------------

I've got two items today, both relating to Berlin, and both of immense importance. No quips allowed!

- April 2, 1945: The Fall of Berlin. The Soviets announce the capture of Berlin, hoisting their flag over the Reichstag. Here's the famous picture:

- April 2, 1989: The Cold War ends, as the Berlin Wall begins to be torn down and German unification commences.

Two huge events of the past century, I'd say. Last year on this day that Cyclone made landfall in Mynamar, you may recall, killing a staggering 130,000 people and leaving millions with nothing. I wonder how they've fared in the year since? Their gov't is so paranoid and repressive, I don't recall if they eventually let any forgien aid or relief in to help out. I do remember that initially, anyway, they didn't want any help at all.

People are odd. 

Especially the French. But that's another story...

I suppose I'll keep up with the French jokes, at least until I get a French regular reader... then I'll have to take potshots at someone else...

Well, I'm going to go save the world the only way I know how... some rounds of Battlefield 2!

Until tomorrow, please, keep in mind... there's no wrong answer.

PS Can you guess where the thread title comes from? 5 points to you if you can!