I guess he was of two minds on the subject

According to the Associated Press, NBA forward and free agent Chris Webber is about to rejoin the Golden State Warriors. After his rookie season of 1993-94 (in which he won Rookie of the Year), he demanded a trade because of disagreements with coach Don Nelson. Now, after playing for Washington, Sacramento, Philadelphia and Detroit, he’s coming back, and apparently he’s happy to be doing so.

So the Warriors released a statement about Webber’s return. This is the part that makes me laugh (emphasis mine):

“It is with great pride and humility that I announce my return to the Golden State Warriors, the place where it all started.”

Pride and humility? Together in one place? Your chocolate ran into my peanut butter?

Did she give herself a gold star?

By now everyone’s heard of Airborne, the tablet you’re supposed to take to prevent catching a cold when you’re in a room full of people. I’ve tried it before, didn’t really like the weird “lemon”-esque flavor, and I don’t know whether it worked or not. I’ve still gotten colds.

The thing that I think is strange about this product is how they’ve really pushed the fact that the formula for Airborne was invented by a substitute second-grade school teacher. Did she come up with it during story time, or maybe during recess? Maybe she mixed up a bowl of unidentifiable cafeteria food and stumbled upon the formula? Perhaps the reason why it didn’t work for me was because it wasn’t invented by, you know, a team of doctors, or scientists in a research lab...someone whose career is centered around creating medicines that actually help people.

Creepiest song ever

“Into the Night” by Benny Mardones climbed the charts in 1980, and for some reason it charted again in 1989. For those of you who don’t know, it’s basically a song about a pedophile who wants to hook up with a 16-year-old minor child girl, whose parents (whom he calls “fools”) want him to leave her alone. He wants to “take you into the night and show you a love like you’ve never seen, ever seen.” Like, in the back seat of his car.

How exactly did this creepfest become a hit?

Once they received the ventilated Sachertorte, they were putty in my hands

Last night I dreamed (dreamt?) that I went to a leadership conference. The only thing they taught was that in order to be a good leader, you need to:

1. Give someone else the shoes off of your feet.

2. Give someone a cake with a hole drilled through its side.

Addition by subtraction?

Nicole and I have been subscribed with Blockbuster Total Access online service for about a year now, and up until recently, we’ve been mostly satisfied with it. (We liked Netflix before that, but the reason we originally switched was because of the in-store exchanges.) There was some issues with our queue, whereby they would always ship the 9th or 12th or 15th DVD on the list rather than, you know, the first—even though it was always available. That one seemed to straighten itself out after awhile.

However, Blockbuster has been starting to make some pretty unwelcome changes in the last couple of months. At first, we were on a 3-at-a-time plan with unlimited in-store exchanges, and it cost $14.99 per month. This plan included an e-coupon for one free new release rental in-store. Then in August, they changed the plans, getting rid of ours. Suddenly, it cost, like, $3 more per month for the same deal. So, we switched to a plan that offered 1 DVD at a time, but kept unlimited exchanges, and it cost $16.99 a month.

Then, last month, we noticed that our monthly bill (deducted automatically) was over $23.00. It turns out that nigh three months later, they raised the price of our plan again by another $5 (plus tax). Say what?? So now, our one-at-a-time plan with unlimited exchanges now costs like $8 more than our 3-at-a-time plan cost less than a year ago. What’s more, we no longer receive the e-coupon for a free new release! Here’s their “reasoning” behind that:

“We recently enhanced our plans to provide our subscribers with more options. As part of this effort, e-coupons were eliminated from most of, but not all, our plans. If you have friends who still receive e-coupons, it may be because they are on one of the older plans that still include e-coupons.” (emphasis mine)

Excuse me, Blockbuster, but eliminating a feature of a plan is the exact opposite of “more options”. It’s fewer options! What’s more, we are on an older plan, and you are taking something away from it. And another thing: when you took away late fees, you just gave everyone an excuse to hang onto their in-store movies for as long as they want to, and now, I can never find the movie I want because it’s always GONE.

It’s very frustrating, indeed. I think I am ready to switch back to Netflix. (Update: I just read that we could actually earn 1,500 airline miles by signing up. Sweet!) Now if only they could work a deal with Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video, then we’d really be getting somewhere....

"The Vision" by Pete Greig

Here's an amazing, awesome poem, music and Flash animation (created in 2000, 2002 and 2004 respectively) about the mighty Army of God. I won't say any more, because the beauty and strength of the words really need no enhancement:

(screenshot cropped from the web page)

Click the image or this link to get there.

Well, I'm feeling better...

...and apparently, based upon a photo of myself from September 2006, I look sort of like some celebrities, some of whom I have actually heard of:

366 Days: Infirmity Update

This pretty much says it all:

If I am feeling better tomorrow, I'll be back to drawing comics, and I may even draw one to replace today's.

I may try to auction off those internal organs for a fundraiser of some kind.

"I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up!"®

Yeah, you read that correctly, that phrase is now trademarked. I guess there were just too many people abusing it.

It was a good thing I'd already gone to the bathroom

The sinks in the bathroom at work are so close to the wall that one has to stand directly in front of the paper towel dispenser, even bumping into it, in order to wash his hands. Over the weekend, unbeknownst to me, they changed the old dispensers in the bathroom with new, motion-activated ones. Imagine my alarm when I went to wash up and heard “WHIRRRRRRRR!!!” right next to my ear!

Progress report

So far so good on the 366 Days of Creativity – nine down, 357 to go.

Obviously I’ve found a theme - single-panel comics. This is a comic format that I had played around with off an on for quite a few years – even getting a couple of gags published in Eugene’s In Town Comic News back in 1995. (In fact, I believe that they’re still selling T-shirts with one of those designs. I wish I had Internet here at work, or else I’d provide a link. Update: I couldn't find a link to their old store.) As time went on, I decided that what I really wanted to do was draw a strip with regular characters, because characters develop personalities and a “voice” that makes it easier to write jokes for. Plus, the format lends itself well to expanded story lines and dialogue.

When it came to picking up the “pen” again for this project, I decided to start smaller, so I have been writing simple, one-off jokes and drawing them. The artwork for a panel takes less time to produce, which is great for me as I start out – I have to learn how to use my tools all over again. As you can see, I have tried to improve my craft with each successive panel, while simultaneously striving for greater efficiency. First with color, then gradients, and now two-tone shading (which I’ll admit to being nervous about).

My workspace has also changed. Day 1 was drawn in exactly the place and position I have depicted myself – reclining on the couch, using the corner of the laptop as a mousing surface. The next few Days were done in a similar position on the bed. It’s mostly comfortable, but hard to do. Now, I have moved over to our dining room table, where the laptop and mouse have their own space – although I’d like to get a proper mouse pad so I don’t do any damage to the wood. What’s next? I don’t know. I’d love it if I could afford the large Wacom touch-screen tablet like Scott Adams uses to produce Dilbert, but that’s $2500 I neither have nor could justify without having a full-time cartooning job. I should probably start working on drawing these panels with my actual hand and a pen on actual paper, so that will be something I will develop in the future.

Oh – since I’ve started this project, I’ve already had some great feedback. Samuel John Klein Portlandendnsisndinsinesses has been reposting every panel on his blog, with commentary, which has been wonderful and far above what I expected. I’ve had a couple of people mark the Great Salt Lake comic as a favorite on Flickr (Thanks, Nicole and Scott). But yesterday, I got a comment on Day 8 that I absolutely love – sure, it’s a negative criticism, but I’ve always gotten a thrill out of those:

"this makes me wonder if cartoons should be outlawed"

Thanks, man!

Oh, noes!

I just realized that I haven’t posted anything since all the way back in 2007!