Vehicular Timeslaughter

My car's engine light came on with no seemingly related performance problems, so I took it to the shop to be sure. But the dealership started making appointments to work on cars. They could onyl see me at 2, so I took my car back home, got Your Sis's car and drove that to work. A few hours later, I went back home, switched cars, and took mine to the shop. After about 90 minutes, they told me that the oil-change shop apparently put in the air filter wrong, and it triggered a wire. If the light comes on again within a week, they'll replace the sensor. Meaning nothing else is wrong with the car. Good to know. While I waited, I read Romeo & Juliet and found the parts I could realistically play.

I assume every college-age boy and gal are gonna want the leads, and they can have them. The couple are the least interesting parts. The two packs of Montague and Capulet boys are meatier, as are the friar and the prince. But the friar and Lord Capulet will no doubt go to the repertory older guys, leaving me with the running buddies are blood enemies of Romeo. Those are fine roles, and I wouldn't complain about them. Your Sis knows the play front and back, and she's auditioning too. She's never auditioned before, and she's nervous. I'll talk her through it before we go in tonight. But no matter what we do, auditions are rattling. I think we're conditioned to be disturbed by them.

After the car work, I went back home and raked for about an hour and essentially took the rest of the night off.

Picture of the Day
Here's a weird thing. If you go to the extended 300 trailer on YouTube and stop it at 1:52, you see this:



Now this obviously has nothing to do with Spartans, but it does suggest the next film by the 300 director: Watchmen. That comic is the Moby Dick, the Les Miserables, the Hamlet of comic books, and it has long toiled in development even as comic fans debate whether any adaptation could do it justice. The guy here is Rorschach, the quasi-narrator of the comic. In the comic, he looks like this:


Until we hear something specific about a greenlit movie, there's no reason to go crazy over a Watchmen film, so I'll shelve my comments for now. But that clip is nestled in the trailer as a treasure for the comic fans, and it's a acknowledgment that a good number of comic fans would kill to see the film made. This could be the spark that lights a geek bomb.

In the News
I'm not saying it's likely, but those rumors about Cheney walking away just won't die. An upcoming Time cover story will try to expose Cheney as the real power in the White House, which may shock as many as eight people. This leads to armchair quarterbacking as to who will replace him. Condi would be an obvious pick, but that would necessitate the administration's third secretary of state, and that position needs consistency. A smart ploy would be to tap a presidential candidate like McCain, but Bush and McCain have an unpleasant history, and this could skewer McCain's platform as an independent thinker if he's seen walking two paces behind the president. But a Cheney-less white House means someone else has to run the shop. Rove lost his power when the Plame story broke, and I can't see two grown adults taking orders via the Cheney-phone from the Cheney-cave. Wouldn't it be hysterical if Bush took control for once and turned out to know what he was doing? Maybe that's why he can't properly communicate his ideas or hide his awkward chuckle: he's constantly wondering if he's correctly following a script he doesn't like.

A Talk With Zales

I filled out a customer survey online today with emphasis on poor service. I requested to be contacted for details, and I just got off the phone with a regional manager. She wanted to know what happened, and I spelled it out while saying repeatedly that I wasn't searching for any compensation and that I recognized a distinction between the employees and the franchise. I just wanted an adult to know that the kids were misbehaving when they were alone.

And she said the right things. From my survey information, she knew which store I was talking about. She said that store was not performing well of late (the whole mall is on its last legs) and had been given a new manager recently. She said corporate policies may have kept the manager from firing bad employees, including yon monkeyfuckers, for a certain amount of time. I don't know if that's the case here. I don't care. I told her that I wouldn't go back to that store, no matter what, and she said she understood. She said she she appreciated the feedback and steps would be taken so another customer doesn't get the same behavior.

So that's that.

That pledge to eat light ended exactly as soon as the pizza arrived at our door. It was miserable weather and Your Sis was napping as I got home. I scurried to the workshop and worked on the comic for a while. I set up my first perspective grid for the first panel: a classroom filled with kids at desks. As we devoured the pizza, we watched this week's "Lost." Maybe my favorite episode so far. It was a throwback to the first season with no appearance of the Others and an d a surprising amount of information exchange. None of this "you wouldn't understand" or "it's complicated." Then we watched a "South Park" and called it a day with a double cocktail of NyQuil.

I still can't make the blog labels work.

Picture of the Day
My photos arrived. Here's me right as Big Daddy skewers my plans for plantation domination.

Potential Fallout

Yesterday, I talked about accusations concerning Your Sis and I from another blogger. This person ranted about Fanboy Reading because the subjects of her diatribe didn't pay enough homage to manga and webcomics. I've since learned that she has a manga-influenced webcomic. So there you have it; she's mad because we don't like what she likes or, more to the point, didn't pay her lip service. I got no response from her after posting my subsequent comments. Probably because I didn't allow them to devolve into hysterical generalization. I don't expect consistent rational discourse online, not when we're swimming in the same ocean with a buncha freaks. But this bolt from the blue was wholly unwelcome and uncalled for. I told Your Sis about it, and she wondered why married couples sharing interests would be called trickery by anyone who is supposedly married, as this woman is.

The stage manager for the play asked me for the link to the theatre blog. I sent it along to her with the caveat that it's purely subjective and intended for a private audience. Not that I said anything untrue. But this kind of disclosure has more impact when its printed. We'll see what happens there.

Picture of the Day
Jordeans' Fall of Man. This is playing a part in my anthology comic.