A Sick and Shaky Monday Morning
I just got in from having a cracked filling replaced. I'm feeling very shaky right now, but I don't know if it's from tossing and turning all night worrying about my dental appointment or from catching the virus that my son had this weekend. I'll see if it wears off this afternoon.
Speaking of wearing off I can't feel the base of my tongue, but the tip is tingling. What a strange feeling. Have you ever found yourself after a dental invasion wondering what your life would be like if the novacane never wore off. How you would have to cope, explaining that you weren't always like that. You used to BE somebody. Finding out if you would qualify for handicapped parking. My guess is probably not.
I'm sure you've noticed that I don't have any new cards or cartoons today. You're observant like that. I would apologize, but it's getting kind of redundant and it tends to lose it's meaning with so much repetition. Let's just say that I have ideas that I'm working on and leave it at that.
Derek has informed me that his wife revised her opinion of me and has decided that I am, in fact, going to Hell. I just REALLY hope that the numbness in my face has worn off before I get there. I don't want to talk like a slobbering goob my first day in Hell. I just won't be taken seriously from that point on. So to that end I need to concentrate on keeping my tongue from sliding down my throat and suffocating me at my desk, thus hastening me on my journey to an eternity of flames and damnation all because of a bad joke. Wish me luck.
My piece of the pie.
Quite a while back I signed up to be a part of the class action suit against five CD distributors and three music retailers for their involvement in CD price fixing over a period of five years. More information about it can be found here. I received my settlement check in February and then quickly lost it somewhere in my apartment. I found it again while engaging in some Spring cleaning. Here it is:
Any bets on whether I'll manage to remember to cash it before the 90 days are up? If it helps the odds, I almost never go to the bank since my paycheck uses direct deposit. On the other hand, I really don't want them to be able to keep even this tiny amount of money. Let the betting begin!
Half-Assed Card #004
Yes, it's in bad taste. I know this. And it's badly drawn. I know this too. And it's late. I had the idea on Friday, got around to it today. Go figure. Asking yourself why you come here yet?
Softwares so cheap I’ll buy dozens!
This is spam that I recently received. I found it to be amusing. Milage may vary.
Half-Assed Comic #8 : Ummm…Uhhh…Okay.
Acute writer's block. Any suggestions?
(Alternate text for search engines) Hah! I think I've figured out why I'll never be doing this for a living. I thought I had an idea for a comic. But it was boring to me, so there's no way anyone else would have been interested in it. then I thought I would write about the time I hydroplaned
on my motorcycle at 45 m.p.h. While that would have been a more interesting story, the previous comic was centered around my stupidity, a motor vehicle and water on a road. Been there, done that (Plus I doubt my ability to draw a decent motorcycle). So, I'd had a whopping total of two crappy ideas and then Monday came around and I realized that I hadn't posted anything since the lame "I have nothing to post" post. And that added even more pressure. I would like to say that I don't do well under pressure. I find that trying to come up with something creative and funny while feeling pressured is the same as trying to maintain an erection in a room full of strangers who are pointing and laughing. I would imagine. Except my goal here is to (hopefully) make people laugh, so maybe its not quite the same. Don't worry though, I'm not going to show you my willy. Not even for easy laughs. I'm just pointing out why I'll have to keep my day job. and since I'm really dropping the ball on this one, I figure It would be best if I hand the rest of this strip to Bob, the amazing talking head in a jar! Take it away Bob!
hahahaha! I’m so damned lazy!
Okay, nothing new to post since, rather than coming up with anything interesting of my own, I've been looking at other people's interesting things. I've added several new links to the fun places I've found. The one with possibly the greatest fun to looking ratio would be zefrank.com. I've only followed a couple of links, but wheeee! OH! I got two issues of 'bear' yesterday. More with the wheee! If you enjoy strange crap and aren't put off by comics, check it out.
Half-Assed Comic #7 : When Bugs Fly
To the tune of When Doves Cry. Dig if u will a picture Of me speeding way 2 damned fast The rain from the morning's everywhere Tell me my reader Will I die at last? Spot if you can the sharp curve Next to the highway so close Commuters strike curious poses They hear the screech The screech as I slide on through. How can they just leave me strapped in Alone in a car that's just rolled? Maybe my spine has been severed Maybe that's how come I'm feeling so cold Maybe my head will stop spinning Surprised I'm still alive Next time I know I'll drive slower That is how to avoid When Bugs Fly
Half-Assed Comic #6 : Zombies! Why do I love them so?
Wordy and time consuming. This one took two nights to finish (partly because I got halfway and then had writer's block). I'm going to try something new with the next one. It *should* be done by the end of the week.
Edited 3/24: I just found out (via Boing Boing) that you can now legally download the entire 'Night of the Living Dead' film here at archive.org.
(Alternate text for search engines) Zombies! Why do I Love Them So? I think it goes back to my childhood, like most things. When I was 9 years old(ish) I was flipping through the channels (all 3 of them) when I came across an old black & white movie with erie music in the background. Of course I stopped there and started to watch. A few minutes into it and I got the shock of my young life! A mutilated old lady at the top of a set of stairs! Scared me crapless! (I swear it was looking at me!) I found out later that the movie was the classic film 'Night of the Living Dead' (I didn't finish watching it that night) I didn't see the entire movie until much later in my life, and although the body on the stairs wasn't nearly as scary that time around, there was a slight tingle of fear still there. And I think that's the key to why I like zombies... They can scare me. I'm not especially hard to scare, but stuff like the 'Nightmare', 'Halloween', 'Hellrazer' & 'Friday the 13th' series of movies can't scare me the same way a good zombie movie can. And that's the thing. It has to be a good zombie movie. I've seen crappy zombie movies (Children Shouldn't Play With Dead things) & decent zombie movies (The Romero 'Dead' trilogy). Most of the zombie movies I've seen were on VHS or DVD mainly since there aren't very many made these days that aren't crap. There have only been three exceptions that I can think of offhand: Resident Evil: Not a bad movie, but it could have been better. I will see the sequel. 28 Days Later: now this I really liked. Technically not a zombie film, but it has the same feel. & most recently the remake of 'Dawn of the Dead'. I've heard some critics panning it because it doesn't live up to the original. To that I say "Phhhbbblllttt!" Taken as just a zombie film, it's a lot of fun, and has quite a few 'tingle' moments. I recommend it. See it on the big screen.
Ah Children…
...gotta love 'em! My son, who recently celebrated his eleventh birthday, pointed out that one of the hairs that fell out of my slowly shedding head had a white root. It made me realize that I am now old enough that my own child is pointing out that I am old. This happened as we were getting in the car to head out on a whirlwind tour of stores in an attempt to gather the supplies he needs for his school science project that is due in two weeks.
He's known about this project since the end of January. On the cover of the packet they gave him it says in bold letters "Work Hard! Don't wait until the last minute!" That makes me chuckle. If my son has inherited anything from me, it's my talent for procrastination (you'll notice I don't have a new comic for today). I'm sure part of that message is for the parents as well. Yeah, that'll work. I should call them and say "Who do you think he got it from?", but I'm too lazy to dial the phone.
So, here we are at near-zero hour. About a month ago I gave him an idea for a psychology experiment. It would have been pretty fun. But we totally ran out of time for that one. So the fallback experiment involves magnets, mineral oil and iron filings. It took some shopping to find some decent magnets, we still haven't bought the mineral oil and no place we went to sold iron filings. So, on to plan two. Gather them ourselves.
I guess not too many people are aware of just how abundant iron filings are in dirt and sand. I say this based on how many people stopped beside us while we were running some of the spare magnets through the dirt to ask what we were doing. So, it's abundant, but damned time consuming to collect this way. We spent about three hours on Sunday filtering through dirt. At the end of it all we had about 3 tbs of filings (and dirt...this is key). At about the two-hour point when I was feeling delirious from the heat (I had gotten sunburned the day before when we were out flying kites, and was STILL too stupid to put on sunblock) my son said "I'm glad we didn't buy any filings because this is fun!" And I actually agreed.
It got me thinking back to my own childhood and my father. He wasn't the kind of guy who would have spent three hours in the dirt helping me look for anything, much less ingredients for a school project that I had put off too long. I'm not meaning to imply that he didn't love me. There have been times in my life where I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been there for me. He just didn't relate well to children. At all. So it was a good feeling that I was there to help out my son when he needed it.
After we got home at 5:30-ish, he collapsed in front of one of the game systems while I decided to try to separate the filings from the clinging dirt.
At first I just tried magnetism, but I could still see a fair amount of dirt mixed in. Then I tried water, which was a very good thing. It must have been a combination of sun stroke and fatigue, but I didn't consider that after the filings are mixed in with the mineral oil you need to be able to see what's happening in the jar when you apply the magnet. When I mixed in water it was like an instant mud cloud! So I spent another hour and a half filtering the filings through water in an attempt to get them clean. I pulled my son off his game to participate once I knew it wasn't going to be a quick thing. He had fun with that too.
Even after multiple filterings the water was still murky and I was quite tired of the whole thing. Today I went to an education supply site that I had the link of at work and ordered a 1lb bag of filings and had them sent 2-day air. If we actually get them on time and he doesn't wind up needing what we collected, I still won't regret the time we spent together working on collecting the first batch. I just really enjoyed spending time with my son.
Even if he likes to remind me that I'm old.