Happy Brithday, Dear Threshold...

August 29th is upon us once again, so, as I so every year, I ask that all of you out there join me in wishing a Happy Birthday to the always lovely and always talented Carla Gugino:



Oh, and while you're at, it how about wishing a Happy Birthday to the blog of which Ms. Gugino is the Unofficial Patron Saint*, a little - and little-read - blog known as Threshold.
The very blog that, in fact you are - or more likely, aren't - reading - turns five today.
They grow up so fast. Before you know it Threshold will start finding that it has hair where it hadn't had any before, its voice will crack, it will start noticing girls, and it will become moody and rebellious and just generally impossible to live with.
It's hard to believe that I've been doing something this utterly pointless for so long, but hey, what else am I going to do with my time? Something worthwhile? Yeah, right.
Five years ago I launched this little blog with no particular plans or expectations, and while some things have changed along the way - "regular" features that have come and gone, changes to the layout, etc. - that much has remained constant.
I would be lying if I said that I'd started the blog without any sort of hopes that it might lead to something more. Sure, I wasn't expecting it, but there was some part of me that hoped that someone might stumble upon it and think, "Hey, this guy is brilliant, witty, and acerbic...I should throw money at him so that he can be brilliant, witty, and acerbic on my dime!"
But it was just a very small hope.
In any case, I thought about doing some sort of retrospective of favorite posts, but in addition to being brilliant, witty, and acerbic, I'm also lazy as hell, so I invite you to create your own retrospective via the Archive links to the right.
Take a look back at five years' worth of complaints, typos, misspellings, sentence fragments, and the ocassional picture of a famous woman not wearing much.

*For those not familiar with the story, on the day that I learned that Threshold and Carla Gugino shared a birthday I also learned that she was starring in a new TV series starting up that fall entitled...Threshold. Granted, my blog has lasted much longer than the TV show, which even Ms. Gugino's loveliness and talent couldn't keep afloat, but the coincidence was too delightful to go unrecognized. Thus, despite the fact that she's still alive - a fact that pleases me greatly because, well, I loves me some Carla Gugino - I have dubbed her this blog's Patron Saint.

Nine

Today makes nine years that I've been sober.
Whenever the anniversary comes around I feel like I should write something profound and inspiring, but the fact of the matter is that the story of my sobriety isn't especially profound or inspiring.
Or rather, it isn't any more profound or inspiring than the millions of other stories just like mine.
That's the thing; I don't mean to downplay my achievement, but I don't want to build it up either, and really, apart from merely acknowledging what the day is, and what it means, I don't have that much to say about it.
I don't even feel like making my standard joke about how I'm going to celebrate the anniversary by going out and getting drunk, though I suppose that I just did.
If you really want to read about someone's achievement, I'd recommend this posting by Roger Ebert, who this year is celebrating 30 years of sobriety.
Yeah. That Roger Ebert.
I'm not in AA anymore, and haven't been for years, but while I've made that choice, I do acknowledge how much my time in AA did to get me to this point. The one lesson I learned in AA that's stuck with me throughout the past nine years has been about Acceptance and how vital it is to success in, well, everything.
It's not about being a doormat or just passively giving up and let life happen. Hell, as is clear in my case, it's not even about achieving some Zen-like state of contentment. And, if you know me at all, it's certainly not about quietly submitting to everything without complaint.
But, as much as it irritates me sometimes and makes me wish that I could be "normal," and as much as I do complain - hey, I like complaining; it makes me feel better, I'm good at it, and while there's always some serious component at its core, I like to think that my complaining is always good for a laugh, if only for myself - I accept the fact that drinking just isn't part of my life anymore. Accepting that as a simple fact makes it a lot easier to stay sober than making maintaining my sobriety into a struggle that is dependent upon keeping my resolve and exercising my will. If I went that route, I would have been back in a bottle - okay, probably a pint glass - long ago.
And here's the other reason I can't write anything profound or inspiring; sometimes I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about.
But that's okay. I accept that.
Okay, that's my story. I used to drink. A lot. It was the central fact of my life, and nearly was my life. Now it's not. It's that simple. And that hard.

Cos-less Cosplay

I hardly ever go onto MySpace these days, but a couple of weeks ago I went on to leave a birthday message for my nephew Jeremy.
While there I noted that my friend Wendy Potter had posted some pictures of herself as Queen Etherea from The Venture Bros. - one of the many villainous identies assumed by the masculinely-voiced Dr. Girlfriend/Dr. Mrs. The Monarch/Lady Au Pair - and I was suitably impressed by what a good job she did with the costume.
So much so that I decided that I should draw one of the pictures (which were taken by her friend Action Bastard) of her in costume.
Or, more accurately, out of costume:



I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out (and so was Wendy when she saw it). I put a lot of work into it, and used some new (to me) styles and techniques to get just the right look.

Quick Late Night Post

I haven't posted in a couple of days, but that'll be changing, as there are two significant events coming up in the next few days that require some recognition.
Monday night I didn't post because I was...ill, and turned in early.
(You don't really want to know the details)
Yesterday I didn't post because...I just didn't.
Normally I wouldn't post anything on a Wednesday because it's Riff Trax Night with Scott, but tonight was an exception.
Due to some medical tests yesterday (you probably don't want to know about that, either) Scott couldn't drive for 24 hours, so Stacy had to bring him in to work and pick him up, thus thwarting the usual Wednesday pattern.
So I had most of the evening free in which to post something before now but...I didn't.
Anyway, I just wanted to mention that substantial posts are coming, and also to post this snippet of an IM conversation I had with Scott this morning:

Me: So what was the test for? The Clap?
Scott: Nice.

We're Not Unreasonable, I Mean No One's Gonna Eat Your Eyes

As mentioned (I think), the Riff Trax Live! event on Thursday was extremely entertaining.
The guys were riffing the "Citizen Kane of Bad Movies" (Or is it the "Caddyshack 2 of Bad Movies?"), the phenomenally horrible Plan 9 from Outer Space.



The movie, originally titled Graverobbers from Outer Space, features the last performance of Bela Lugosi before his death (he died during the filming, and was replaced by the the director's girlfriend's Chiropractor, who covered his face with a cape to "disguise" the fact that he wasn't Lugosi), former late night TV hostess (and niece of Finnish Olympian Paavo Nurmi) Vampira, and wrestler Tor Johnson, whose face was immoralized as one of the most famous Halloween monster masks.
As anyone who's seen the 1994 Tim Burton movie Ed Wood knows, Plan 9 was produced, written, and directed by crossdressing auteur Edward D. Wood, Jr.
What makes Wood's movies so entertaining - particularly Plan 9 - is that he had no idea how terrible his movies were, and he made them with such passionate sincerity that you can't help but find it all at least a little bit charming.
Still, the movies are absolutely terrible, and thus ripe for Riff Trax-style mocking.
In addition to Riffing Plan 9, the guys kicked things off with a live Riffing of an execrable old short film called Flying Stewardesses.
There was also musical entertainment in the form of Jonathan Coulton, who performed this amusing song (and another nerd-humor song about the future, as envisioned by a thirteen year old in the early 1980s reading Omni in his bedroom):



There were a couple of technical glitches with the broadcast, but nothing major. The only thing that really marred the event was the obnoxious laugh of the woman sitting next to me.
Scott commented that she seemed to let loose with it at inappropriate times, but I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem was that she doesn't have any other kinds of laughs in her repertoire, so even when something only warrants a mere chuckle, she cuts loose with the loud, artificial-sounding "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Still, it was a small price to pay for an entertaining evening.
Monday, and the dreaded return to work, is rapidly approaching. I didn't do much with my time off. I picked up my comics on Thursday, did my grocery shopping on Friday, and got my haircut yesterday. Beyond that I've been doing some drawing, but haven't really produced anything worth posting here.

LET'S GO, LIVONIA!

Jesus Crhist Lord Savior Messiah sounds like the title of an anime, like Neon Genesis Evangelion or something.
The following video featuring a very...umm...passionate candidate for the city council in Livonia, Michigan, contains a lot of anime-sounding terms. Point out your favorites in the Comments.



(Found via Pharyngula)

The structure of his sentences is also oddly reminiscent of Rorschach's. I can easily imagine him writing a journal starting out "Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me."

The Lousy Tourist Strikes Again

I remain, as always, a lousy tourist, so I didn't take a lot of pictures while I was home.
Below are the pictures I did take on our trip to Fort Wilkins and up Brockway Mountain.