It's Probably Not A Good Sign...

...when the very first thing you say in the morning is "You fucking ass-clown!"
It just doesn't set a very good tone for the rest of the day.

Pre-Emptive Comeback: No, You're A Girl!

The other day when I was at Super Target I found myself buying moisturizer for my face, ultra healing lotion for my elbows, and super mega extra strength dandruff shampoo.
As I considered these items, I thought, “Dryness…it’s a real problem for me.” Then I thought about it some more and concluded, “Thank god I don’t have a vagina.”
“But Jon,” you say, in an effort to prove your worth as a sarcastic dick, “you bought moisturizer for your face, therefore you do have a vagina. Or else your gay.”
(By the way, you say “your” instead of “you’re” because, in addition to being a sarcastic dick, your grammar sucks.)
To which I respond, “Hey, if not wanting the skin of my face to constantly flake off like the lead-based paint on the side of an old weather-beaten barn makes me gay then change my name to William and call me Three Dollar Bill.”
(Actually, don’t do that; I get enough crap in my life without having to add a stupid nickname to the mix.)
In any case, I’m sure that my efforts will be for naught and that I will continue to flake like a perpetually shaken snow globe and that my elbows will retain a texture that can best be described as sandleather (like sandpaper, only with leather), so it’s a pointless endeavor anyway.
Guess I’m just not cut out to be gay or a woman, or even a metrosexual (which is basically just gay and in denial).
On a few other fronts, it looks like there were two hold-outs on the buy-back offer.
Dumbasses. Not sure what’s going to happen now; the condo developer is actually in negotiations to sell the whole project, and are now scrambling to come up with a new strategy, since they needed to buy back all 58 units.
It’s been a week since I ordered my graphics tablet and I haven’t received it or even so much as a tracking number. I e-mailed them once, with no response. Guess I’ll have to call. I’m surprised I’m having difficulty; the company had a 4 and a half (out of 5) rating on PriceWatch.
In any case, I suppose that I should pretend to do some work, seeing as how they’re paying me to be here.

Brock F***in' Samson

This clip from The Venture Bros. season 2 clearly demonstrates the awesomeness that is Brock Samson, the Swedish Murder Machine:

If I Were Having Fun Time Would Teleport

After the usual dicking around this morning I got showered and dressed and headed out to the comic book store.
I had not previously been to their new location, but I knew, roughly, where it was, so I didn’t bother mapping it or getting an address or anything like that.
Naturally I regretted that once I got to the area.
I hadn’t realized that there was such an expansive (and expanding) shopping plaza there. I drive by that area regularly (like pretty much every time I go someplace outside of Leesburg), but I guess I’ve never really looked over that way (though I doubt you can see much of it from the road anyway).
The place is really nice, and will likely be even nicer when it’s done. It reminds me of the area around that nice movie theater that Scott and I sometimes go to.
Of course, niceness aside, I had no idea where the comic shop, there were far too many shops (open and not quite yet open) and too few signs up, so I wandered around aimlessly for a while before calling Scott to see if he had a copy of the “We’re moving!” flier, or could look up the address for me online.
He wasn’t at home, but his cell phone’s Internet capabilities are vastly to superior to those of my phone, so he looked up the address and called me back.
Once I got to the store and was ready to check out, I ended up causing some confusion.
Scott is taking advantage of their subscription service, and authorized me to pick up his comics for him. When I asked for his stuff, this led them to think that I was him, which is a notion that I never quite disabused them of, and the fact that I was buying many of the same titles that Scott had subscribed to only added to the confusion. Plus there’s the issue of the discount you get if you subscribe to a certain number of titles. They ended up just applying the discount to the entire purchase, which included some long boxes that I figured I might as well finally get around to buying.
To avoid confusion, I’m going to sign up for the subscription service as well, that way I can pick up two separate orders and have two separate discounts.
On the way out I noticed that there was a rather upscale (compared to like Wal-Mart or something at least) women’s clothing store right across from the comic book shop, which meant, as it did today, that there will be frequent encounters between schlubby comic book geeks and snooty rich bitches who look disdainfully down their noses at said schlubby comic book geeks.
From there it was off to Super Target, where I was just going to pick up a few things before heading over to Shoppers to pick up some groceries.
However, in the interest of lessening time spent out in the world I decided that I’d just get everything from Super Target.
I kind of wondered why I don’t do that more often, until I got to the register and saw the total.
The whole time I was there some kid was screaming off in the distance. As his screams echoed through the aisles it was like being near some medieval house of torture or something.
I just don’t get that. I mean, you’re a freakin’ kid; what in your life could possibly be that horrible? Enough with the damn screaming already.
We’re not talking about a baby, either, so it’s not like it was hunger pains or teething pains or the need for a diaper change. This was a kid who actually had the ability to articulate his problem in some other fashion, but was simply choosing not to do so.
Oh well, what’s life without screaming kids?
(It’s much better is what it is.)
Once I got home I set to work on assembling the long boxes, which was a first.
Back at my old store the boxes were sold already assembled.
It was just a simple matter of folding them into the correct shape, but that matter proved to be anything but simple, especially in the case of the deformed box that had to be snipped in some places in order to actually fold properly.
However, after a sweaty struggle that resulted in a few corrugated paper scrapes on my arms, I had four boxes assembled, which should be enough to hold at least the majority of my collection (for the time being).
I haven’t decided if, for the sake of freeing up floor space, I’m just going to throw the comics in as they are, or if I’m going to wait until I’ve figured out where to buy the additional bags and boards I need (since I had to cancel my last order of said supplies).
I suppose I should wait, because then I could get around to actually organizing them and entering them into the database, killing multiple birds with one stone. One long, arduous, expensive stone.
I spent much of yesterday working on an element of the bigger picture that I’m working on. While I knew that it wasn’t working out quite so well as I’d have liked, it wasn’t until I took a break and looked at it with fresh eyes that I realized what an abomination I’d managed to create. I hate to even think that I’m responsible for brining that thing into existence. It was horrific, and I really don’t want to talk about it any more.
Needless to say, I need to try that one again.
Another work week is nearly upon me, and once again I’m aware of how rapidly my days pass. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I don’t really have any fun on my days off.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream

Ever since it was announced by Ben & Jerry themselves on The Colbert Report I've been wanting to try the ice cream flavor made in Stephen's honor, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream.
I have, however, been consistently denied the pleasure, as no store in the area seems to carry it.
I suspect that this is no mere ordering problem, but rather a vast conspiracy.
There are forces out there that hate America, and would do anything to prevent the world from getting a taste of freedom (in ice cream form).
Who could be behind this perfidious assault on our liberty, you ask?
Who else?

The Joy (Or Bemusement) Of Unexpected Money

So far today has been pretty uneventful.
I’ve spent most of it working on a picture, though not the picture I’d started last week, or even the Heroic Portrait I did last week and which the customer has asked me to provide a different background for, but rather another picture that…well, I don’t think I’ll bother saying anything about it, as a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, and when I finish the picture I will then be posting a 1,000 word essay in the form of the finished piece.
Or something.
Yesterday when I got the mail I discovered three things:

1. There was a class action lawsuit against my credit card company.
2. By virtue of being a cardholder, I was a plaintiff in the suit.
3. The case had been settled.

I learned this by opening an envelope containing a letter with words to that effect and which also containing my piece of the settlement pie: a check for $3.44.
I think I’ll finally just dive in and buy that HDTV now, seeing as how this suit has made me independently wealthy.
I mean, WTF? How does that even make it worthwhile to pursue a lawsuit? Sure, some lawyers probably got a pretty big chunk of change, but if you’re going to make a judgment against a company, you should make sure that it’s big enough that the people being represented will still manage to get more than $3.44 even after the lawyers finish picking the judicial carcass dry.
Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t even know about the case before getting the check because it would have sucked to have gotten my hopes up.
Actually, I think I do recall getting notified about the case a long time ago, and, realizing that I’d probably get something like $3.44 out of it if the case went in our favor, promptly forgot about it.
It’s strange to think that there was a time when $3.44 could have made a big difference in my life. I mean, that would have been about enough for a pack of cigarettes, or could get me most of the way to buying a liter of so-bottom-shelf-it’s-practically-in-the-basement vodka.
(Seriously, I used to drink vodka that was actually that dirt cheap. Like five bucks a liter.)
Anyway, the point is that such a small sum could have gone a long way for me, once.
Now? Not so much.
And it’s not that my tastes have changed so much (though said tastes no longer include cigarettes or vodka, dirt cheap or otherwise), it’s that I’m in a position where I seldom reach that level of financial desperation.
(Which is nice, but I’d still rather be filthy, stinking rich.)
Thinking about how a little bit of money can mean a lot, I’m reminded of the time early in my marriage in which we were flat broke. Lorie had just gotten off the phone with her mother asking to borrow some money, and we were sitting around feeling depressed and defeated knowing that the check from her mother was still days away from arriving by mail and wondering where our next cigarette was going to come from.
To pass the time, since it wasn’t like we could afford to go out and do anything, Lorie started going through some of the wedding cards we’d gotten when she stumbled upon a $20 bill that had somehow escaped our notice those many months before when we’d gone through all of them.
I can’t remember a time when either of us was happier.
So there’s definitely something to be said for not having much, as it tends to make you appreciate what you have – and what you serendipitously find – so much more.
But actually having money in the bank is still better.
But, in remembrance of leaner times, I will actually deposit my settlement.
After all, I earned it for all of my suffering at the hands of the evil credit card company, apparently. I mean, I must have suffered: they gave me money.

spf factor nipple clamp

I woke up a little late this morning, but not too bad considering how late it was by the time I finally got to sleep last night.
After puttering around/sitting on my ass for a while I got ready and headed out into the world. My first stop was the bank, where I deposited a rebate check and a check from having recently exercised some stock options. The latter check was considerably larger than the former, and as I looked at my receipt showing my current balance, my eyes goggled a bit. Even factoring in the subtraction of my mortgage payments and a few other outstanding debits, it was still a substantial balance.
Which is what made going into my next stop scary; it was Best Buy.
I was in Best Buy with a several thousand dollars at my disposal. That is a scary thought.
I’d gone in strictly for the purposes of buying a USB hub, but those intentions were made well before I realized just how much money I was going to have in my account.
Still, I managed to remind myself that there would be little point in buying, say, an HDTV, or something similar, and that it’s been my intention to put most of the money into my high-yield savings account, with the hope that, somewhere along the line, it will go towards a down payment on a new place.
(Deadline to respond to the buy-back offer is this week. If it goes through, the deal will be final 180 days from the receipt of the last letter. Last count, as of yesterday, was 52 out of 58 received.)
So I managed to walk out of there without dropping a few grand, and in fact, only spent $20 beyond what I’d intended to spend.
(Monty Python’s Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life on DVD for $10 each? Impossible to pass up.)
From there it was off to the grocery store, and then home again where, thanks to the fact that I remembered to buy butter, I had those grilled cheese sandwiches I was supposed to have for lunch last week.
And that’s been my exciting day so far.
Oh, and the title of this post is a search term that led someone here that was just crying out to be shared.

WTF?

Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat

As Dvorak pointed out on his blog, the top that the chick is wearing was clearly digitally painted on, so she was actually walking around topless at the event.
This is just beyond bad judgment.
A Nintendo tie-in might have made more sense: you could use your Wiimote to virtually behead the goat.

Cover Me

So far today, beyond talking to my mother, I haven’t done much but mess with comics.
Bagging some, adding others to the database.
I wanted to break the 800 mark for total comics in the database, so I figured that adding my X-Men comics would do it. I had been at 763 before. I was at 820 after.
That’s not counting the X-Men issues that I have that are missing covers and which I am, as a consequence, going to toss.
I decided that it’s just not worth holding onto them, though in some cases I will, if it’s affordable, attempt to replace them.
That’s what I did for some old Superman comics in my recent order of back issues.
Were they valuable comics? No. Were they especially good comics? Not really. Certainly not by today’s standards.
However, I did have a particular sense of nostalgia for them, so it just seemed appropriate to replace them with copies that were in better shape before simply tossing out the old ones.
I’ve actually got quite a pile of coverless and near-coverless comics. They’re in such deplorable shape for a variety of reasons. Up until I got to college I didn’t really have easy access to proper archiving supplies, but beyond that, I was generally just sort of careless about them. I mean, I was more interested in reading them than sealing them up and hiding them away from light and moisture.
Of course, in fairness to me, a lot of them came to me already damaged, as hand-me-downs, rummage sale purchases, or comics bought in those “4 for 49 cents” packs that had the covers partially or completely torn off.
This was an unscrupulous trick in which (as I understand it) distributors would rip the covers off of new comics that they had a surplus of and report them to the publisher as damaged, sending the tattered remains of the cover in as proof, and get a refund. They would then turn around and package the damaged comics together and dump them on retailers at a dirt-cheap price, which was, at that point, all profit.
(I may be off on exactly how this worked. This stub of an article at Wikipedia has a little information about the process with paperbacks.)
As a kid I got a lot of comics this way, as the local store sold the multi-packs, which were actually 11 cents cheaper than one new comic.
I’ll most likely sift through the whole pile of coverless and near-coverless comics that are destined to be discarded to see if there’s anything else I’m feeling nostalgic about, which means lots of itching and sneezing and dry skin, as I seem to be extremely sensitive to the dust and acid.
When I told my mother that the only thing I had planned for the week was a trip to the comic book store (at its new location), she said, “You’ve been spending a lot of money on comic books.”
I responded, “Gotta do something.”
The weekend at work was largely uneventful. I spent pretty much all day yesterday reading comics online, which was cool because someone had posted a bunch of Fables – one of the comics I’ve begun buying – which allowed me to fill in some of the blanks between what I’d last read and where I am now.
Fables is one of those books that makes me sad that most people are too narrow-minded to give comics a try because of their preconceived notions about the form, because people who don’t read Fables are really missing out.
Oh well.
I’m looking forward to getting my new graphics tablet, though I doubt that it will arrive by Wednesday.
Will it make me a better artist? No.
Is there anything wrong with my current tablet? Not really.
Still, I’ll be glad to have something bigger (insert dick joke here), and there are some useful features that my old tablet doesn’t have.
In any case, there’s not much else going on here, though I’ve got one of those turkey roast things n the oven for dinner and hundreds more comics to add to my database, so honestly, what more could I want?