Making Plans

I woke up early Monday at 4:30 and this morning at 5:30. Your Sister claims I never needed much sleep, and now I’m determined to just get up and draw until I got to work. For a week now, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep. I’ve been simply rolling over and trying to get more sleep, but it leaves me dragging the rest of the day.

Because she’s got a conference Thursday night and Friday, I’m going to Friday night’s They Might Be Giants concert with her, but now I might be taking Travis. He needs to get back to me about it. He alone came over last night to watch rasslin’ as Kathy and Tonia were too pooped to watch the show. I went to the TMBG site and found they have a series of songs inspired by the names of the venues they are playing on the tour. It’s fun stuff and a nice introduction to their skill. But Your Sister also set up a dinner date for me Thursday night with Angela and Dan, another couple we hang out with. They’re the family that lends me the Harry Potter books. A local eatery is hosting an HIV charity night with 20% of the each order’s proceeds go to at least one Western North Carolina HIV agency.

I measured the wall space for the planned landscape painting. And when I say “landscape,” keep in mind that the land will comprise only a tenth of the painting scene. The rest will be sky and clouds. Because the wall is white, I can’t use a very light blue sky because it will blend in at a distance. Unless we put a strong border around it. Hmm. I have to think about this. Anyway, the space and location will determine the look of the painting.

Picture of the Day
The cockpit of the new Airbus A380. I think it’s an 841. Note the keyboard stations in front of both seats.

In the news
There’s some wailing and gnashing of teeth over an Internet communications bill that would allow the larger telecommunications companies to create a filtered version of the Internet for broadband users. The fear is that they will charge you extra to either access the whole Internet or charge you to get their filtered version. AOL already offers this filter by providing zones in which you can access sponsored or sanitized Internet content. Some AOL customers never leave the AOL version of the Internet for fear of viruses and porn.

The fear is that these big companies will dominate the ISP market and ruin the chaotic nature of the web. To that, I suggest one simply buy access through another provider, like DirecTV’s ISP (HughesNet as it’s now called). Here in Mayberry, you can get fast-access service through only one company because the market is too small for a big name to compete against the local phone company, and their charges are insane. If I gamed online, broadband might be enticing. Our neighbor has offered to hook us up onto his DSL account, an offer that, while very neighborly, makes me a mite nervous. If his account goes down, so does our access, and there’s no way of knowing how much of our online activity he might be privy too. I don’t access anything that dial-up can’t give me in a reasonable time.

Anyway, this internet bill is only in the committee stages and has yet to go to the congressional bodies for a vote. The panic seems premature. There’s also another answer: cough up the dough for the Internet you want. Buy extra stamps to mail another check to another company. Stop buying $4 coffees every morning and use that $120 a month to get the access you demand. We’re not wealthy, but we can budget to get what we want. Seems other people can too, especially if they use subways to move around town. I’ll stop before I sound like I’m railing against city folk.

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Bush is quoted as saying about the immigration debate, “I know this is an emotional debate, and I can understand it’s emotional, but one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we’re talking about human beings, decent human beings.” That’s exactly the right tone to take. Maybe the new chief of staff knows what he’s doing. Unfortunately, this comes about two weeks too late. Bush eased environmental regulations for gas refinement today and ceased purchases of oil for the strategic reserves. This is a good start. But yesterday, Bush said the following: I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free. When we’re dealing with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, maybe we shouldn’t make any comments that sound like a Crusade. Just saying.

A Row, A Late Show, And A Mow

We had lunch together Friday afternoon as Your Sister was in town to buy fabrics for the guest bedroom. When I got home, I found her unhappy with what she had chosen and assembled but I thought it looked good. The black furniture is now softened with a deep red bedspread and gold sheets and pillow covers. Because the room is otherwise so light from the white walls & rug and the all-day sunlight, these design works nicely. But she was frustrated with the process of choosing the colors and a little frayed about the edges, and we argued needlessly most of the night. All was well before we went to bed.

On Saturday we ate at Rocky’s, grabbed some new videogames at Blockbuster (using a balance compiled when I traded in older games), and drove to the new airport stores. I picked up some office equipment for the studio and we walked through the pet store. She still hints that she’d welcome a dog into the yard, but I can’t do that to our cats or the neighbors. We hear enough barking dogs at night. We also hit the World Market to find paintings that I’ll steal from for color and composition. She wants me to make two additional paintings now to decorate the house. We then went to The Asheville B Plaza (Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, and Barnes & Noble). She returned fabric that we agreed didn’t work with the room design while I perused Best Buy. We camped out at B&N for hours; I picked up a new copy of the pocket-sized Constitution and Declaration of Impendence, and she got some books she might teach next year. We met Travis and Kathy for what became a three-hour dinner and adjourned to their house when Tonia called to announce she was home from Spring Break. That led to another five hours of talk and beer and a “Saturday Night Live” rerun with half of Boondocks Saints thrown in. We got home at 2:30 after Kathy taught us Euchre, a card game that might make more sense when one is sober.

On Sunday, I bought her a DVD/VCR for her classroom. She worked there for a bit and I mowed the lawn. I managed to remove the mower blade, sharpen it and reinstall it before hand. I had to mow in two stages as I was feeling a little beery and wanted to avoid heat stroke. Before we watched a very entertaining new “West Wing,” I ordered a pizza, and we ate it on the deck. We discovered that birds are using the paper towels we put in the compost bin. They’re using them to build nests, we think. We’re trying to help Mother Nature by composting paper towels, but the damn birds are recycling it. (*shakes fist at Mother Nature*)

Sketch Day
I’ve started detail work in the Star Wars sketch. Notice here the work on her right hand and the folds of the shirt. Now that I’ve gotten my drawing seas legs back, I have to tweak the drawing to reflect traditional jedi clothing. I fear drawing the costume exactly as she wore it will look less like a tunic and more like exercise sweats. If I change it, I'll make the sleeves looser, and extend the shirt to look like the tunic hem.

In the news
The Iranian president questioned again the legitimacy of Israel (again) and allowed women to attend soccer games of the first time since 1979.

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In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday (April 23), here’s the Random Shakespeare Insult Generator.

Bring Me The Head of Alex Trebek

We watched a recorded episode of “Jeopardy” than aired last week. The last question in the category of “Forbes 500 2005 Richest Fictional People” featured a big spoiler from Harry Potter. This is something I have yet to read for myself in the series, and it’s a little shocking. I was so distraught, I couldn’t answer Final Jeopardy (Emma Lazarus wrote the poem displayed at the Statue of Liberty.). Alex, we now have a blood feud. The Trebek name now adorns my Plaque of People Who Should Be Launched Into The Sun.

Your Sister finished up the front lawn, and with help from your parents, finally moved the old Hitchcock furniture into the guest bedroom. It looks good. She’s doing a bang-up job around the house. She rented us a tiller for the weekend so we can get the garden ready, but the rain may keep us from using it.

I again woke up much too early this morning despite staying away from chocolate, sugar, and ice cream. So those can’t be the cause. Which means I can eat crap again.

I just got paid, and I can again play the PlayStation after Lent, and the “Guitar Hero” videogame (complete with guitar controller) is calling to me. I don’t know if I can resist much longer. Then again, I haven’t played the new “Katamari Damacy” yet either.

This weekend is your big test, and we’re both sending you mental power through the atmosphere. Good luck, and party heavily afterward.

Picture of the Day
WWE performer Triple H poses with fans in Milan, Italy. The kid’s expression at the bottom makes the photo.

In the news
According to a FOX News poll, Bush’s approval rating is down to 33%. That’s FOX News saying that, not the AP, New York Times, or any other agency the administration can shrug off.

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Variety reports that the production team behind “Lost” will make the next Star Trek film. The story will focus on Spock and Kirk meeting for the first time. This sounds really, really good. A pre-original series film has been in consideration for years at Paramount as numerous creative types have tried to pitch a new start for the franchise. I can only classify myself as a causal-to-regular fan of Trek, but I’m intrigued by the thought, and I would advocate starting over from scratch in production and technology design and. We have cell phones that are smaller than the original communicators. A futuristic movie should reflect what we now think surpasses our modern devices. We can’t hang on to what people forty years ago with a shoestring budget thought would look good four centuries later.

Can't Sleep. Clown's Gonna Eat Me.

For the third straight night, I awake clear as a bell at 5:30. Las night, I ate no chocolate and drank no caffeine. Yet, I started crashing hard at 10 p.m. and awoke two hours before I needed to. I don’t get it. I feel a little fuzzy in the head from lack of proper sleep. I haven’t had the exercise I’d prefer in the past week, but I have done some serious yardwork. I come home, I work on the drawing (which is looking pretty good; I might not need to ink it), I help with dinner, we eat, watch some TV, and go to bed. I think we need to walk the neighborhood now that we have daylight after work. Or turn off the TV and read for a while. We do have a pile of library books.

I forgot to mention a few days back that we had a visitor to the office, a representative from one of the local theatre companies. I mentioned that I wanted to work with them and that I had performed in Greenville and Spartanburg, and it turns out she’s from the latter. Even graduated from the same high school just four years after me. If I pursue an audition with them, she might be my inroad.

Picture of the Day
We watched a TiFauxed “Nova” last night about an isolated chunk of Madagascar teeming with lemurs and crocodiles that live in caves. One such lemur is the aye-aye. It’s a nocturnal prosimian that uses an elongated middle finger, front teeth, and large ears to dig out ferret bugs out of hollow bush stalks. The cats were utterly bored until they heard the baby crocodiles, after which you couldn’t pay them to stop watching.

In the news
Because Your Sister has taught for more than ten years now, I keep an eye out for teacher articles in the news. Recently, there have emerged only three types of regular stories: teacher-student sex, articles about the weapons/drugs policies catching an honor student with a butter knife/Advil, and No Child Left Behind. This was a bad idea to start with, as it forced states to fund programs mandated by the federal government. A new AP poll of teachers and parents states the following:

1. Nearly eight in 10 parents are confident their local schools will have students up to state standards by the 2013-14 school year target. Yet only half of teachers are confident the kids in their schools will meet that deadline. [Why? Because schools can’t afford teacher aids or separate classes for the handicapped kids. They then move to regular classrooms and affect the grade curve.]

2. Parents and teachers often disagree on daily aspects of education, from the state of discipline to the quality of high schools.

3. 64 percent of teachers say their state standards in reading and math are about right. Most parents agreed. But parents were also twice as likely as teachers - 31 percent to 15 percent - to say current standards are too lenient.

4. The law does demand regular testing and yearly improvement by schools, all aimed at getting 100 percent of children to do grade-level work.

And the last point is what I want to focus on. The notion that 100 percent of students will graduate high school is unrealistic. Schools must be seen as a factory, analogous to those of the steel industry. It takes in a wide variety of raw materials (the kids) and tries to refine them into a stronger product (graduates and citizens). Like with any factory, you can’t expect a 100-percent refinement ratio; you cull scrap before it’s released as a final product. It’s a lovely notion that all students who enter school will emerge as proficient or even adequately prepared to get a job, use a bank, pay taxes, or be generally independent. But that doesn’t happen. There are some kids who just can’t hack school, whether it’s because of handicaps or attitude. And a number of those are genuinely disruptive. That lowers the efficiency of every class they sit in. All kids should get a chance to prove they can live up to a certain level of participation, in groups and on their on. But after that, you have to get draconian. Either they get shipped to a secondary system of classes or they get out of the school.

I advocate a hiatus for bad students. If the grades hit a certain level for a certain amount of time, they are suspended for, oh, let’s say a year. They are given a job and as much “real world” experience as possible. At the end of that time, you evaluate the student and see if they want to go back and try school again. If they don’t, fine. They stay out of school. Save that student’s allotted state money to help students who do want to be there and make an effort. I encountered many a student who was there simply because the law demanded it and were given no incentive to perform from their parents as the kids were planned all along to go into the family business. And frankly, some kids don’t need the higher level of classes to graduate. They are content to get what we might call a “guild degree.” If you want to be a mechanic, you don’t need AP English. And you shouldn’t be considered part of the same academic class as those who tackle every AP course so they can go to an Ivy League school. Let’s make a guild tract for students.

Let’s make the curriculum distinct for students with different goals and career prospects. Otherwise, we’re trying to make every student perform to a level that not all require or can achieve, and in doing, lowering the ability of teachers to demand the most of their classrooms.

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The Cubs are 9-5 and second in their division.

She Works. She Gets the Job Done.

While I was at work, Your Sister went to town on the front yard. She pruned, she whacked, she raked, she organized. The yard looks a hundred times better. The teacher who gave her advice about the yard suggests we mulch the garden rows until we have a definite strategy for new plants. That suits me fine. Your Sister was hoping to move the compost pile out of sight but today’s big storms probably won’t let her get outside. After doing all the yardwork yesterday, she needs to take it easy today anyway. It’s pitch black as I type this; Asheville is buried in storm clouds.

We teamed up to cook dinner last night: a pork curry stir-fry. After I ate dessert, I realized that my body is no longer used to eating ice cream at night. Twice, I’ve eaten the stuff since the Lent ban, and twice I’ve zonked completely out and awakened at 5:30 in the morning. I’m apparently back to my weird caffeine reaction. Your Sister has the opposite reaction; she eats ice cream and is terrifyingly chipper.

We watched “House” and a “Mad About You” rerun on TiFaux. “House” is an interesting medical series where each episode revolves around a series of bad diagnoses. The patient is always just about to die away when the real cause is discovered. The formula is recognizable within two episodes, but the acting and subplots are good enough to bring us back. I haven’t worked on the Star Wars drawing since Sunday, and I told Your Sister I need to devote time to it during the week. “Mad About You” remains very hit-and-miss. But I’m not as big a fan of Paul Reiser as Your Sister.

Gasoline jumped up four more cents since I posted the $2.86 price this week. Gas hasn’t been this high since Hurricane Rita. Even the shortage prices weren’t as high.

Picture of the Day
From the What Were They Thinking blog about bad comic ideas comes this panel:

In the news
There’s been a recent rash of retired generals criticizing Rumsfeld about Iraq. A few others have stepped forward to defend him as well. The conservative spin on this is to say the generals are attacking the policy of a civilian leader in the Pentagon. That’s not that at all what they’re saying. Bush announced Tuesday that the only person to choose Rumsfeld’s tenure is him. Bush called himself “the decider.” Reports have lingered for at least a year that Rumsfeld has tried to resign more than once, but Bush won’t accept it. If true, what good does it serve the military if their commander doesn’t want to be there? Rumsfeld has had good plans for the military, including making the armed forces leaner, more mobile, and more broadly capable. But the “doing more with less” policy got the Iraq occupation on the wrong footing, and his reaction to the insurgency has apparently been insufficient. IEDs, suicide bombings and convoy attacks continue. He needs to go if the GOP wants to maintain the Congressional majority, but the administration doesn’t want to appear reactive to public sentiments like this.

The new White House chief of staff may freshen up the cabinet, but it’s unlikely he’ll oust Rumsfeld as he might change the curtains. Press secretary Scott McClellan is out the door, much to his relief I’m sure. He had neither the poise or style of Ari Fleischer and projected a vulnerability that was pounced upon by the press corps. Had he soothed the increasingly agitated reporters, there may have not been as much vehemence in breaking through the administration’s wall of sound bites in pursuit of real information. The new secretary needs to be charming, confident, and suave -- qualities Scott never once projected.

Not Much

Your Sister did a lot of work on the yard. It already looks much better and less like “an abandoned lot” to use her words. A retired teacher is coming over while I’m at work to help her plan the front yard. All I ask is that we have some colorful flowers and a lack of those bushes with the big blue flower globes. I hate those things. We had Kathy and Travis over again to watch wrestling. They’ve become addicted. His dad is ashamed of them a little, saying it would be better if they took drugs. “At least people don’t laugh at you when they find out you’re on drugs.” Also, the new office coworker discovered I watch the stuff and offered a chipper “I don’t anyone with a rain who watches THAT.” I used to think she was just blithely inane. Now, I think she’s a snob. I’m used to that sentiment, but I’m always surprised by people who phrase it in such obviously condescending ways. I tired to explain to her what the appeal is, and she just chuckled and cackled as if I said “Hey, have you tried eating concrete?” Screw her.

Gas pries down here are inching up. Regular unleaded gasoline costs $2.85 a gallon. Your Sister sports car fuel goes for $3.05. We haven’t run the furnace in about a week, but we haven’t turned on the A/C either. W just open the front and back doors and let the ceiling fans throw the air around. Our A/C/ bills will be much, much lower than the furnace gas bills.

I had to exchange a t-shirt I got for donating to the local NPR station. The shirt they sent was a large, but as I’ve noticed over the past years larges are getting larger. I used to wear a men’s large back when I was puny. Now, with 20 more pounds, large shirts envelope me like a nightgown. I have to wear men’s medium sizes. I know this has happened in women’s clothing too, but I have yet to hear or see any coverage about men’s clothing changes in new reports about American obesity.

Picture of the Day
The annual WCQS NPR donation shirt is made up like a Scrabble board. I got the short-sleeve version.



In the news
Atlanta’s Mike Luckovich won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning. You can see his Pulitzer submissions here. The fiction award went to Geraldine Brooks for Marches, one of those ridiculous novels that spin off of a classic work of literature. Her book is about the father from Little Women, which Your Sister says is never in the book. If the has such a tenuous or nonexistent connection to the original, the link is there simply to garner publicity and sales by the curious fans of the original. And that’s astounding. I’ve seen a sequel for Gone with the Wind, a sequel for Wuthering Heights, a book starring the wife of Ahab from Moby Dick, and a detective thriller starring an adult Tiny Tim. It’s absurd. It’s been done in comics with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as Mr. Hyde, Dracula’s Mina, Captain Nemo, Alan Quartermain, and the Invisible Man team up to fight a world threat. But that’s a lark. That’s fun comics. It’s not a novelist piggybacking on dead authors’ works. The Pulitzer judges just validated the genre. I’m unnecessarily worked up. I need to lie down.

I Work. I Get the Job Done.

Once again, I realized I had not copied over files from my old, busted PC and once again had to hook up and crank up that fractured Windows PC. I needed the package art I made for Your Sister's mix CDs. Hopefully, this will be the last time I have to venture into that computer and deal with its constant crashing. I've started a new mix CD for her, called Moody Boys, full of hard-rock and whiny guy songs. When your sister awoke, we grabbed lunch at Juan's and a metal fork at the Humane Society. The latter means we no longer use one our eating forks to cut up cat food, something that irrationally makes me blanche. The lady at the HS store was a bit shocked to see someone bring one small fork to the counter. Cost = 11 cents. This was all we wanted and needed despite her efforts to sell us Easter gear at half-price. I bought some coffee for Your Sister, and we saw a great summery painting that we're tempted to buy. It's very rare to find anything in this area that jumps out at us, but this is a decent size and the work of someone who knows what they're doing, unlike all the folksy crap we see about town.

We drove to Asheville then. Your Sister shopped for complementary bathroom gear (towels, shower curtain, washrags), while I killed time in Best Buy, only the greatest store since Toys R Us. I again drooled over "Guitar Hero" for the PS2, but sadly the store demo was showing sings of customer abuse. I'm thinking of buying a chess program, but Your Sister suggests instead we can play. I'd prefer that. I also checked out scanners for the office, flat monitors for me, some other PS2 games (Lent is over, and I can play the system at will again), and the satellite radio systems. They're pretty cheap, to my surprise. A plug-and-play receiver set only costs $50 and the subscriptions run $13 a month. That's mighty do-able.

With a bagful of towels in hand, we went to downtown Asheville. Your Sister, to jumpstart my wall painting, bought me a really nice easel. I mean, really nice. I'm now obliged to paint until I drop to make that investment worth it. With the storage room cleaned out, I have plenty of space to work in. We looked at some new pieces in the furniture store where we bought our chairs. I don't think we're replacing the couch before the fall. We met your parents for dinner at Asheville Pizza, and I used their flagon to drink Houdini ESP. I didn't see any evidence of new beer logos and can't help but wonder if they have any interest in using the ones I designed after all. It's a pipe dream, I know, and I'm setting myself up for disappointment. That flagon is a strange cup to work with; it stays cold for an hour, but the lip makes the beer flow around your mouth. No wonder the dwarf in Lord of the Rings was a messy drunk. I went through three napkins to dab my mouth dry.

After this, Your Sister and I caught an Irish band at the Diana Wortham Theatre. A packed audience watched them play for about two hours. Right before the show, the theatre manager announced that among the crowd as a French rotary group visiting the area for a few weeks. That's more than likely the same group that will come to Brevard in a few weeks and includes Valerie, our house guest. It wasn't so much a catalog of songs as much as grooves. I see now the appeal of jam bands. The players started off separately, found a hook, and played it for five minutes at a time. It's a nice sound but not very distinct. I did find that the music sparked my brain to write most of a short comic story. Your Sister bought two of their CDs after the concert and had the players sign them. The two of us shared a piece of pie afterward and went back home to collapse exhausted.

On Saturday morning, we went to the old-fashioned soda shop for lunch as we normally do. A clutch of Russian tourists snagged some ice cream and a Charleston couple was looking at house-hunting paperwork. Yes, summer is not far away. After a quick stop for crackaccino, we strolled through Lowe's for what seemed like hours looking for project tools. We ran into Travis, and he meekly asked if he and Kathy could come back Monday for another wrestling show. Well, of course. We also saw another local teacher, and I helped him find some items for his honey-do list. We picked up a sealant for the bathtub (Your Sister wants to remove the sliding glass doors and use a shower curtain), a wheelbarrow, a workshop vice so I can sharpen the lawnmower, weedkiller, a putty knife, and screws.

Once we got home, we went to work. Above the bed, we hung the rug you brought us from Swaziland. We tried to do this before, but the hanging instructions foiled us with inadequate wall anchors and screws. We ditched the instructions and now the rug hangs perfectly. We also finally installed the curtains on the back deck door. No longer do we have vertical blinds; instead we're using the curtains from her old apartment. We had picked them out together with the notion that they might hang in our house one day. Now, almost a year after we bought the house, we have them up. Following that, we caught some horse racing on TV and toured the yard to get notions of how to tidy it up. One of our neighbors chatted and walked the property lines with us. We want to radically change the front yard; the two garden rows require daily maintenance and are quite the eyesores. Your Sister plans to tackle them during her Spring Break. I, however, want to till some of the backyard garden and try our hand at growing food. At first we'll use a small patch and then expand if we get the hang of it. The firepit was hauled to the deck for summer display, and the workshed was inspected. It's serviceable for now, but it can't last another five years. Wood is rotting, and carpenter bees are boring throughout the trim. Your Sister is trying to use a new color system in the main bathroom and again relied on my "painter eye" to help. I try to tell her that this is subjective but was pressed into service anyway. My best advice: Put up some towels and close the door. Don't look at it for a while, and check it again later with fresh eyes. We watched Anatomy of a Murder but the damn TiFaux cut off the ending. It’s a fine courtroom drama starring just about everyone at the time.

Easter Sunday saw us take a long lunch and read the New York Times. We took turns with the laundry and turned on the ceiling fans to cool down the house. The down comforter is now packed away, and the cats are enjoying the sights out the open windows. I fiddled with the “Star Wars” art, as you can see below. I then put together the easel and wheelbarrow, and we worked in the yard for a little bit. She’s going to rip up the first of the two ugly garden rows in the front yard, and I showed her how to use the hedge trimmer to thin it out. A snackish dinner accompanied “West Wing” (only three episodes left) and some “Mad About You” reruns.

While she got ready for bed, I finished up the third Harry Potter book. The gal who lends them to me is gone for Spring Break, so I can’t start the fourth one until next week. That’s fine. I have a box of library books to plow through. I read one of them Saturday, a retrospective on Captain Kangaroo. My head flooded with memories untouched for almost 25 years. But I learned that Margaret Hamilton, the original Wicked With of the West, was the Book Lady on the Captain’s show. I remembered her and never knew the Book Lady was the Witch even though I knew Hamilton taught kindergarten. Crazy.

Sketch Day
This is the third update on the artwork [the sketches and the modeling photos]. At this stage, the first idea is just to map the drawing area on the page. Once you get an idea of how large the art will be, then you can worry about proportions. Initially, it’s very loose. No shapes are defined. I lightly sketch simple body forms and angles to get a very rough outline. I then tighten up some lines here and there. Using a photo allows you to compare placement of body parts with lines in the clothing. They act like navigational landmarks for each other. Then I start to define the outlines, making the lines heavier and darker and more controlled. I’ll add some circles to mark changes of light, primarily on the boots. The main thing Your Sister isn’t modeling is a hood, but I have plenty of action figures and SW art for reference. I’m starting off with the Emperor’s hood, and it, like all props, can change if need be. Once I get the initial sketch done at full size, I’ll let it sit and return to it later with fresh eyes and tighten up more lines. My preference is to switch back and forth between the two portraits so each stage of the pictures can be completed at the same time. This picture has been darkened in Photoshop to better show the work. The faded gray line is the merge of two scanned images.

The Roof Is On Fire

Because tomorrow is Good Friday and the office will be closed, I keep thinking today is Friday. I’m all screwed up.

We did catch the soccer game last night and chatted with Charisma and Keith. They just had a baby (one of the many who now swim in the Parent Pool). The game was fun to watch, but the school lost decisively. We joked about being bad fans, shouting like John McEnroe at the refs, and how Angry Dad would behave. Then we noticed Angry Dad was indeed there. When we left, we said hi to his wife and he ignored us, which is to be expected. I don’t think he has anything personal against Your Sister. He’s just a terrible sports fan.

As we drove to a restaurant to grab dinner, we noticed smoke pouring out of a roof up the road. As we got closer we noticed one of the car-repair garages (a majority of the small businesses in town) had a fire in the back of the garage. It hadn’t started long before we got there. The owners were aware of it and clearing people away. I used Your Sister’s cell phone to call 911, and the operator said they were aware of it and on the way. As we pulled into the restaurant parking lot, the garage roof went up. People there noticed the fire only after we turned to look at it. We walked in to get a table and pointed out the fire to the hostess. This alerted the diners, and almost all got up to watch the fire, which was sizable by now. The hostess snuck a peak, and then started to seat us.

Her: Smoking or nonsmoking.

Us: (looking at fire) Um, non.

The fire was out by the time we left. The wooden roof was gone, leaving a metal shell of the façade. When we got home, we watched “Lost” and a little bit of “Good Eats” and went to bed.

Before I got home, however, Your Sister called me to say she was going to a conference in Columbia in two weeks. This will happen on the day we planned on seeing They Might Be Giants. She won’t make it to the show. I will still be going, and now I wonder how best to find someone who wants her ticket. I might just go uptown and ask various shop owners if they can announce a fake contest where the first person to … I dunno, walk to the counter, gets the ticket. This stinks a little. I was hoping for both of us to go.

Picture of the Day
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor in the new Superman movie. Not only does this new film refer back to the first two Superman films, but Spacey makes a great replacement for Gene Hackman. I cannot wait for this film.

In the news
In order to scare up movement against Iran, the State Department is saying Iran can make a nuclear bomb in 16 days. But nuclear scientists say that Iran can’t make a nuclear weapon for possibly another ten years. That doesn’t mean Iran can’t buy one. But then any nation could if it could find a desperate enough seller. Condi’s thrown out some tough talk against Iran as it steps up nuclear enrichment. The fear is that a crazed Iranian president (and he does like to say macho things) would nuke Israel. He’s gone on the record as denouncing that country.

But this was the same justification for going into Iraq: Saddam was financially supporting suicide bombings (true, from what I’ve read) and could drop nukes there at will. That was a key push of Powell’s WMD argument. But even if the State Department is right, and even if there is solid evidence Iran pans to build and launch a nuke, the administration has already used up its credibility with accounts of WMDs in Iraq. Just this week, a report announced that the White House touted the discovery of WMD trailers in Iraq while no evidence of their function existed. The White House now says it didn’t intentionally mislead anyone and blames bad intelligence. It’s going to be difficult to go back to the U.N. and assert the same need for action that we used against Iraq. Then again, the Iranian president is such a blowhard that he may be slitting his own throat with aggressive taunting of Western powers.

Today’s moral: The leaders of a handful of countries are throwing out tough talk over who has the right to strike first at the other. Lost in all this are the assertions from the Pentagon and pundits that all the Iraq WMDs are in Syria, a country whose border has seen some skirmishes with our military as we push insurgents out of Iraq. This means, the Iraq war front expands outward on two sides while we still fight in Afghanistan. That’s a lot of ground to cover with an exhausted, under-financed military.

What a Day for a Mow

The weather was too good to stay inside once I got home. I changed clothes and mowed the lawn. Since this was the first cut of the year, and we’re still not out of frost weather, I didn’t cut as deeply as I otherwise would. Just enough to tidy the appearance. Your Sister weeded the front walk. Next, I’ll use the weed-eater on the lawn edge, rake up the tree debris, and till the garden. We also want to use railroad ties to border the garden soil and move the compost pile behind the workshed.

We watched the episode of “West Wing” that ran two Sundays ago. We still have to catch the most recent episode, but it won’t be tonight. We’re going to a girls’ soccer game at the high school, followed by dinner out. I doubt we’ll watch tonight’s “Lost.” But we can catch it Friday as we both have the day off.

Picture of the Day
ThinkGeek.com is offering stuffed virus and disease characters. This it HIV.

In the news
Iran’s enriching uranium. U.N. council debates on sanctions are split between the U.S./Europe and Russia/China.

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If one listened to the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday about 12: 40 eastern, you would have heard him relate a story about dining with a friend and an unnamed liberal media person. Limbaugh talked about how the latter two argued at the table over immigration. The liberal was saying he approved of poor people coming to America to improve their lives. At this point, the Rush friend is said to have gotten irate and asked if the liberal would want them to come into his back yard “and date his daughter.”

And there you have it, the white male fear: The dirty people want our women. Forget the expenditure of emergency room healthcare, mystery plaques, terrorist plots, school integration, suspected crime waves, and the increase in language evolution. We can’t have them dating out women. It’s straight out of Victorian cliche where a big, black Bushman (or, many times, a gorilla) scampers off with the African explorer’s damsel. Rush said that he later tried to calm down his friend, to explain how the liberal thought himself the debate winner because he displayed more compassion and that he probably thought Rush’s friend was a bigot. Given how Rush himself told the story, he certainly sounds it. And Rush didn’t call him on it as he should have. One can’t be surprised to hear this kind of shit spouted as a rational support to their exaggerated, ratings-hungry rants, but it’s still startling to hear each time.

Oh, and his theory on the immigrant influx: Post-Soviet communists have created shadowy organizations to drive immigrants into the U.S. to destroy the government. No, really. He cites the Roman and Greek empires crumbling from within because of immigrants. That would ignore the collapse of the empires by over-extending their resources across the globe.

Rasslin for Dummies

Got home last night and Your Sister reminded me that we wanted to adopt library books. As the Mayberry Library finally moves to their new digs, they’re asking patrons to take home boxes of books to ease the move. We take four boxes with us and find the library folks aren’t really sure what limit there is, if any. We load up. I aim for the arts section and get a graphic novel, some books on influential art and photojournalism, an Andrew Vaachs mystery, a few Heinlein paperbacks, a collection of “Fresh Air” interviews, at least one Stephen King, a Jeeves anthology, a David Mamet novel (I didn’t even know he wrote them), a history of Captain Kangaroo (which delighted the wife), and a hernia from carrying them all.

When we got home, I started making the wings for the guests. They show up exactly as the oven announces the dinner’s done baking. Travis, Kathy and Tonia the German Exchange Student have little to no wrestling exposure. Kathy watched some when she was in fifth grade while hanging out with boy pals, Travis knows some names, and poor Tonia thought we were going to watch amateur wrestling. I make the offer again to pause the show at any time to fill them in on characters, motives, and angles. We sit down at nine to watch the show.

9:00-9:20 A long talking segment as John Cena, Edge, and Triple H sell their upcoming pay-per-view match for the title. All conversation turns to Lita’s fake chest. Does she use double-sided tape for that shirt? How can she wrestle with those? And Kathy, the expectant mother, says that’s how her chest feels these days. As follows the audience pattern, Travis and I aren’t warming up to Cena while the women are getting hot and bothered over him. Kathy loves his army haircut. Tonia is dazzled by his arms. Tonia, however, is mortified by Triple H. She loves the Lord of the Rings films, and Triple H looks exactly like Bormoir. She physically turns away from the TV and says he’s gonna ruin the films for her. Triple H offers the Evil Handshake Gesture, and Travis and I quickly explain how this always, always, always works: The good-guy hesitates to shake hands, knowing the bad guy will in some way embarrass or assault him. But, being the good guy, he wants to display sportsmanship. He’ll extend his hand and either a) watch the evil hand quickly retract and fix the bad guy’s hair; b) get decked with a clothesline; or c) have the bad guy spit in his face. Instead, Cena, quickly walks to Triple H, slaps him, and walks off. That wins us over. We hate stupid good guys, and Cena has proven that he too watches wrestling and knows the traps.

Kathy is dismayed by all the talking. She wonders if there are any smaller guys, and I explain they’re on the Friday show. We also all compare notes on Ric Flair, known to even the most causal of fans.

9:25ish Rob Van Dam vs. Rob Conway. The match does nothing for the new folks, and Kathy, Tonia, and Your Sister instead talk about the handsome, evil Shelton Benjamin sitting at ringside. Tonia laughs at the Five-Star Frogsplash.

Maria interviews Mickie James, and Kathy cracks up over Maria’s dress.

Kathy: Is she supposed to look like she walked out of a cartoon?

Me: You mean, um, larger than life?

Kathy: Exactly.

Me: Yeah.

Kathy mistakes Maria’s giddy personality for the actress’s inability to keep a straight face during the interview.

9:30ish to 10ish The Spirit Squad immediately wins over Kathy. She and TLMT talk about dropping wrestling references to their classrooms and how it can get the attention of the bored male students. Their opponents are Kane and Big Show, massive gigantic giants, and we all discuss where they can buy clothing (Very Big and Very Tall Shops). So far nothing has convinced Tonia this is worth her time until she sees the replay of cheerleader Kenny hitting a big legdrop from the turnbuckle during last week’s show. She’s gobsmacked by the hangtime, and now she’s watching intently. The Squad does what they specialize in and fly all over the ring even when they get hit. Kathy is in hysterics (“They’re like little monkeys throwing themselves at him!”). The Squad members scream whenever Kane throws them around, and we all crack up over it, rewinding to watch it over and over. Kane goes nuts and scares off the Squad before turning on his partner. When he chokeslams the larger Big Show, all are impressed.

Kathy: So this runs from 9-10, right?

Me: (with bad English accent) This one goes to 11.

This, however, doesn’t work for them as Kathy has to leave. They almost get out the door when Vince and Shane McMahon walk into a church to talk to God. Vince decided that if Shawn Michaels wanted to rely on God to get him through their feud, then God can be Shawn’s tag partner at the next PPV. The skit works for all of us as we crack up over Vince’s arrogance and wait for the divine lightning bolt that never comes. With that over, the gang has to leave. I think Kathy wants to make this a regular event, and I’m all for it.

And speaking of expectant mothers, we ourselves went through a pregnancy scare. Your Sister was feeling weird in some unusual places for a few days, and we bought a pregnancy test. It gave us a “negative.” During the time, we talked a bit about having a kid as we’ve done before. We still prefer the idea of adopting, but one of us would need to stay home with it for the first few years unless we adopted a kid old enough to go to school. I’d rather not work so far away if we had a child, but there’s nothing in town for someone with my skills. The local paper looks like it hasn’t upgraded its technology since the end of the Reagan administration. But frankly, I’m too selfish to share her with a kid right now. I want to enjoy the time we have on our won as a couple. There are a slew of pregnant gals in our social circle, including a number of teachers.

Picture of the Day
This is a recent Star Wars character piece by comic-book master Adam Hughes. I want my SW drawing to be able to stand next to this.

In the news
A European spacecraft has entered orbit around Venus. NASA announced it will send a craft to crash into a moon crater to search for water. We should be able to see the impact from Earth. This kind of simple experiment is what budget cuts have lead to.

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A local radio host, a guy who prides himself on taking independent positions, is raving in the immigration debate. His new sound bite is that all English-speaking people will be relegated to history books as we are run off the continent. I’m willing to concede that North America may eventually lose pure American English and take on more Spanish, but it’s done that for over a hundred years. Most of the lingo from Westerns is from Spanish. American English is all about assimilating slang. Consider how much French and German we use regularly. The supposition that a pure Queen’s English, white-dominated America is the epitome of social evolution is mindless. Populations evolve. Languages evolve. Laws evolve. This hardline “us or them” mentality is just going to get some one killed. I keep hearing the stat that 11 million (presumably Mexican) immigrants are threatening our national sovereignty. That number represents barely 10 percent of the country’s population. Ten percent. I’d hardly call that the invasion force that the Minutemen want us to perceive.

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The Cubs have a 4-1 record and lead their division.

My Hair Was Mugged

Friday, we happened to run into Travis, Kathy, and Tonia at the local pub and talked for hours. Travis is playing a computer game that I recommended a while back, and I was able to help him work through a tricky area with it. I talked Harry Potter with Tonia, while Your Sister and Kathy talked teacher stuff. Then we walked over to Jason’s or dessert. A good night all around.

Remember when I discovered I could hear 1030 AM WBZ out of Boston? I beat that Friday night. 1010 AM CFRB. Toronto. Canadian radio. It's madness. I'm gonna try for Russian military chatter next week.

Saturday was full. I started off tinkering with the lawn mower to get it ready for use again. You have to tick through a checklist” change the air filter, change the spark plug, replace the oil, replace the gas, sharpen the blade. It’s not as bad as it seems to begin with. Then one finds that there is no direct spark plug replacement for the one that comes with the mower, and the charts for plug replacements at the local hardware stores don’t even list Briggs and Stratton, the guys who made my mower. Fortunately the local store owner recommended one to me that worked just fine. Also, I had no idea mowers held so much oil when I took out the drain plug. I turned the mower on its side and unscrewed the plug. I assumed the oil, being all old and goopy would just ooze out. No. Oh., no. The mower sneezes the oil at you. Once the plug is removed, you’ve got a gusher or thick, jet-black crud spurting out. This, you might imagine, can be surprising.

While I was out getting mower parts, I swung by the regular shop for a haircut, and the stylist this day just about shaved my head. In fact, as I sat there feeling the clippers drag along my skull and watching clouds of hair tumble to the floor, I remember saying to myself, “I wonder if this is what it feels like to have your head shaved.” Yes, yes it does. Because that’s what he did. I have hair, but not much. And it’s all one length. I look like I just left the army barber. The ladies at the office say I look like Jack from “Lost.” They are what we call “drunks,” and they are not to be believed. I was mortified by the haircut. It’s embarrassing. Eight-year-old redneck boys sport this style.

We ran to Target to buy baby-shower gifts, but the store wasn’t stocked well enough to match the registries. Your Sister instead opted for gift cards. We spent the rest of our time there buying a bathing suit for her. Let me tell you this, young Holly, this can be the most treacherous thing a husband can attempt with his wife. In fact, we tried this once before about a year back, and it went horribly wrong. Tears were involved, and in both of our defenses, Your Sister picked a really bad suit. It was the suit’s fault. Your Sister isn’t fat or ugly, but that suit had too much ugly to overcome. This time, however, we decided to mix and match, and found a winner based on the bottom piece which is made for guys. This gives her the tomboy look she craves, and we found a top without much trouble. We spent maybe an hour going through all the options, but we both enjoyed it. I like to shop, and she was encouraged enough by the combinations to have fun with it. Mission accomplished. We strolled to Old Navy where she found a shirt for me she really took a shine to, and she picked out some lighter summer gear for her.

On Sunday, I reassembled the mower and chopped up some wood for the firepit. I also tore down the ugly ivy clinging to the workshed. We grabbed some lunch at the pub (same as Friday night) and got groceries. We’re having the pub couple and Tonia over tonight for wings and wrestling. I’ve never made this many before, and I’ll have to catch them all up on the wrestling stories. It should be a blast. Last night, we watched The Paper, a Ron Howard ensemble film about a New York daily’s employees. Great film, really shows you how papers work. Or don’t work.

Sketch Day
As I noted last week, we’re moving along on the Star Wars pic. I wanted to try a more detailed style for this one and asked Your Sister to pose for me for both figures. The figure on the right will be modeled after you. These pictures show how I can take multiple photos and mash together the best parts of each for the pose I want to draw. I lightened up the pants on the second picture to better see the folds.

In the news
Rallies around the country today will focus attention on immigrant rights. As I said before, I’m against the easy bigotry and paranoia that slide into this debate. But is the legal process for entering the country that limiting? We provide an inspiration and culture for capitalist self-determination, and that lures people from all over. We can’t criminalize their desire to be here, but we can’t collapse our laws for coming here. How many people can be granted refugee status if they aren’t escaping a warzone? I’m all for a program that legalizes everyone that steps forward within a certain amount of time. If they’ve worked here for a time, they then have the means to pay for a retroactive legalized worker status. But if they don’t step forward within the time allowed, then they have to go back and come in legally. Let’s be fair and helpful for those who now have a better financial footing to afford the legal process. But only for a certain time. I’m still not for walling off the border; that’s too draconian for me.

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Part of the controversial youth worker law has been chucked by Jacques Chirac.

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A New Yorker article stated the U.S. is planning nuclear airstrikes against Iran. This comes from the same writer who first reported the Abu Ghraib abuse. The potential to use nukes comes from a 2005 decree that the administration reserves the right to nuke someone who poses a nuclear threat by those who might feel threatened and attack first. Baffling, isn’t it?

Babble

Your Sister made baked salmon and mangos last night. It’s the second time she’s made it for us, and it really is a good dish. I still haven’t made any real advances in eating seafood. I like stir-fry shrimp, but mostly I taste the lemon juice. The she-crab soup at Jason’s (which catered our wedding) is pretty good, but you mostly taste the cream of potato. I’ve had a curiosity about lobster lately, but I don’t see us running to a local fish camp for that.

The local paper is a shameful fishwrapper. Not only do they misspell “tobacco” in a headline on the front page (not two lines removed from the article’s use of the word), but they stated that, when seeing a wild turkey run “amuck” in downtown, “laughter erodded [sic] from cars.” What third-grader is writing this junk? Your Sister saw an article about an Irish group playing next Friday in Asheville and asked me to get tickets. She’s gone performance crazy. This will be her fourth show since last month and the second in April. In March we saw Nine Inch Nails, she caught A Doll’s House a week later, we’re seeing the Irish group and, two weeks after that, They Might Be Giants. She has left hibernation behind. The fishwrapper also announced a program to help the library move into a new building. Citizens are asked to check out 2 boxes of books and keep them at home until late May. Instead of returning them to the old library, you turn them in to the new one. We’ll be able to house four boxes of books. We’re such nerds; we think this will be fun, like taking care of pets.

Valerie, the French guest, emailed us late last night. She writes English better than I speak French, but I think we’ll be able to communicate alright once she gets here.

The NFL released the season schedule. The Panthers have the typically division-heavy program against Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tampa Bay, but also play Dallas, Pittsburgh, Philly, the Giants, Minnesota, Baltimore, both Ohio teams, Washington, and St. Louis. No Green Bay or Arizona this year. I think they have a good chance at making the playoffs again this year.

Picture of the Day
A gathering of Ultramen, the Japanese live-action monster fighting robot dude. I used to watch this through static on a rabbit-ear TV.

In the news
The New York Sun, a recent startup publication, reports that former Cheney aide Scooter Libby testified that his boss gave him classified (and bogus) pre-war WMD intelligence to release to the media. The permission to release the packet is alleged to have come from Bush. But Cheney said late last year that both of them have the right to declassify any information they deem fit. It remains to be seen if there’s a legal basis for that claim or the ability. Libby says he gave the info to former NY Times reporter Judith Miller. Her notes of the meeting state this was when Libby told her Valerie Plame’s name, who at the time was an undercover CIA agent. The outing of Plame is seen as retribution for her husband (Joe Wilson) writing a report denouncing the Nigeria-Iraq nuclear material theory. What this means in the short term is that, if true, the White House has lied like a rug about the administration’s knowledge and dissemination of the Plame identity all along.

Will anything come of this? Hard to say with a GOP majority in Congress, but there has been pressure from Republicans to distance themselves from the administration over bad policies. Democrats (notably Russ Feingold of Wisconsin) seek a bureaucratic hand-slap over the Iraq war hard-sell.

Oh, a new poll finds Bush’s approval rating at 36%. That’s little more than a third of the country. A third.

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Yet another mosque attack in Iraq. There was also one yesterday.

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Hamas might recognize Israel after all.

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When speaking to a House judiciary committee, Alberto Gonzalez said the president might expand the warrantless wiretapping program to include calls that take place solely in the United States. Currently (depending on who you ask), the program only can be used if one half of the call originates from another country.

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ABC’s Bob Woodruff, the anchor injured in Iraq, has left the hospital.

Insurance is Fun

One of The Big Talks spouses have concerns how much medical insurance they want to pay for. Such a conversation happened last night, and it didn’t go so well. Your Sistr is offered what’s called supplemental insurance through the state; this isn’t medical insurance, but a kind of “income insurance.” If you can’t work, this supplies you with money for living expenses. Medical is supposed to cover just the costs associated with getting healed up right proper.

Aflac, for instance, sells supplemental insurance. You pay a certain amount of money out of each paycheck, and they promise to pay you back a certain amount plus some. But many consider it a kind of injury lottery. If you’re lucky enough to have an accident, you make a profit. Your Sister was asking me what I thought of such deals from a philosophical perspective while at the same time not tipping her hand about how she regarded them. But her questions pointed to the same focus: What do you want me to do with this? I didn’t want to tell her how to spend her money. This lead to raised voices. And a bit of consternation. Here’s an example of how I got frustrated:

Her: (cute, sincere, inquisitive) What do you think of these kinds of deals?

Me: (loving a soapbox, smart as a whip) It’s a crap shoot. How likely is it for you to either stub your toe or lose all your limbs? How much do you want to pay for the likelihood of either? How much can you afford to pay in hopes of winning an injury lottery?

Her: (playing her cards close to the vest) I don’t know what you mean.

Me: (baffled, confounded, mind exploding) … I can’t be more clear.

Us: (transforming into Godzilla and Rodan) RAWR! GRR! YOU IS THE DUMB!

We hammered out our plan on dealing with it finally after we had to calm down enough to clarify our positions in the most formal words possible. This is how we fight. Then it we inevitably discover we’re saying the same thing in different ways. Always happens. We have the exact same stands couched in distinct terms. So we’re not getting the state’s insurance plan. While it can help pay for everything from cough drops to crutches, that’s all coming out of your money. It doesn’t give you any more group money for those items. The insurance acts as a savings plan with no interest. When you run out of your money, there is no more to draw from. The kicker is that at the end of the year, you don’t get back the remainder of what you didn’t spend. That goes to a state account to spend as it wishes. So, no, North Carolina, screw that noise. We’ll handle our money, spend it as we need to and not lose any if we manage to stay healthy. That’s what the plan is: A self-regulated health tax.

All is well at Stately Geek Manor. I made honey-glaze chicken alfredo (mixing up Dijon mustard and honey myself) and watched “Lost.” Without spoiling anything, one of the actors from the last third of “Sex and the City” debuted in a new role and had a major role last night.

I started the third Harry Potter book last night, and it feels twice as long as the second book. (I just checked Amazon, it actually has more pages, but less than 100 of them).

Picture of the Day
The stuff you find online…

In the news
Giving nuclear technology to Eastern nations is bad. Unless it’s India. Which of course gets along with everyone and wouldn’t possibly make weapons.

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The jury in the Moussaoui sentencing phase will hear the cockpit recordings from Flight 93. I’m not sure how that can possibly prove whether he killed anyone directly. It’s going to be highly emotional material to hear, yes, but how does this prove anything? Does someone in the cockpit shout “thanks Moussaoui?” Also, the producers of the Flight 93 film have to love this kind of free publicity. Former mayor Giuliani is set to testify in another move made to play off the emotions of the jury. Moussaoui deserves to die. I’ll argue for that any day. But this parade of claptrap is more than a little disturbing. It’s an attempt by the prosecutors to get mainstream press exposure and make people forget they nearly botched this case. Speaking of 9/11, NY construction workers are still finding body parts.

Inadvertent Second Consecutive Star Wars-Related Video Link of the Week
A 1979 drunk-driving PSA based on the cantina scene.

Goodbye, Carrie

Last night, after about a year of running the entire series, TBS broadcast the last episode of HBO’s “Sex and the City.” I assume they’ll start all over next week, but we won’t follow it as closely as we did this run-through. Portraying a writer is generally considered one of the hardest things to do for an actor; all the great activity is perceived to be mental. Her columns are compiled into a book that sells poorly in America, but makes great business in France. (All of this based somewhat on Candice Bushell, who wrote such a column and turned it into a book.) The show didn’t convince us that Carrie Bradshaw was a wrier as much as she was a diarist. She just happened to publish her diary in print once a week.

For example, in the last episodes of the show, she moves to Paris with her new artist boyfriend. Her paper decides not to run her column anymore, so she lands in Europe with no job. For the weeks we see her struggle through what amounts to an awkward French vacation, at no time does she write down her thoughts. She documents nothing. For someone who spent the past six years writing once a week, this lack of journalism is baffling. Here’s a great idea for a new book: A sex essayist moves to the City of Romance to keep her man. What does she do with her time instead? Shops, smokes, pines for her busy honey. Very disappointing for us. We thought she was more independent than that.

Otherwise, the show ended great. The supporting cast had their moments to shine, and one feels as if there was true progress made with them. Sara Jessica Parker (Carrie) in many ways reminds me of Your Sister in a Bizarro-world, chain-smoking emotionally distorted way.

With “S&TC” gone, our Tuesday couch-time threatened to loom like a giant void. That is until Your Sister realized we had missed FOX’s “House” all this time. The series was programmed into our TiFaux as soon as we got off the phone with you last night.

Picture of the Day
Told ya he looked like Your Brother. Chris Masters, WWE muscle guy, has improved in the ring almost every week. He’s very young (maybe 22), and he’s got the bad-guy attitude down pat. He also sells the opponent’s offense well, taking slams and hits broadly enough to convince the crowd he’s taking a beating. He’s fun to watch.

In the news
One of the sure signs of a second presidential term is the eruption of scandals. The newest one came yesterday as Brian Doyle, deputy press secretary for Homeland Security, was busted for soliciting who he thought was a 14-year-old girl online. It was a cop. He had sent “her” porn video clips and photos of himself, some taken in his office. One reports states,” Doyle was so obsessed he gave her his DHS office and cell phone numbers, and his instant messaging address.”

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A funny, short video: Japanese police vs. Darth Vader. Place bets now!

Comics

Now, I’m starting to feel the effects of switching the clocks. I drag a little bit. But it’s nice to see the sun at 7:30 p.m. again.

I got my monthly haul of comics yesterday, and I mention this only because DC Comics (the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman folks) are rebooting their comics once again to make it easier for new readers to jump aboard. Superman, for one, has within the space of two issues, become my favorite comic again. The talent strata of comics is clearly defined, and until recently, DC has been content to give their most prominent titles to b-list creators. The reboot signals a renewed commitment to make the most popular heroes also the most enjoyable to read. Marvel Comics (X-Men, Spider-man, Hulk) already do this, but they hand over so many title to such a small group of writers. I don’t think it’s far off to say three guys write a dozen Marvel titles. It stretches their skills thin. This makes DC’s reboot also well-timed; they offer stronger, fresher takes on established characters right as the Marvel gang seems stale.

Here -- sit you down, and let me ramble:

Since I moved to Mayberry, my comics have been shipped to me from my old comic store, The Tangled Web. I shopped from that store since I was in college (my math is bad, but that’s at least three weeks ago). The owner has always taken care of me as a customer, and I don’t think there’s ever been an item he hasn’t been able to get for me once I requested it. Great customer service all around.

Because comic distribution is essentially a monopoly, the store owners are often over a barrel when it comes to ordering comics. They can’t send back leftover issues, and if they short-order a hot title, they’ll run into problems getting any later on. Worse, they might get copies from subsequent printings, and those are less valued by collectors. They have to guess what the demand for comics will be so to minimize overstock and wasted money. To take some of the guesswork out, comic stores often give discounts if customers provide a list of what they want. I’ve had a pull list with this location going back to when it was owned by someone else and operated under a different name.

The current owner, Daniel, came in and made a smooth transition for the customers. If you never bothered to look the employees in the eye – a possibility with some comic fans – you’d never know there was a change. But Daniel has since turned a simple comic store into a significant hub for pop-culture lovers. He caters to fans of card games, Japanese products, videos, and collectors of models and various licensed memorabilia. It’s clean, well-lit, and organized for easy access to everything. I love the place. I miss being in there. It was a weekly highlight to walk to the store, take in the ambience, talk shop with Daniel, and trade reviews with other readers. There are a lot of comic stores out there that are gloomy, dirty and generally unwelcoming. I’ve been in stores in Michigan, Charlotte, and Columbia, S.C. where I wasn’t even addressed by an employee. Not that comic stores only have crappy service, but given that they are generally mom-and-pop (or rather nerd-and-geek) businesses, they literally can’t afford to drive off new customers. Compare that to stores in Tennessee, Boston and Greenville, N.C. where the owners have bent over backward to help me find something without crossing the line into creepy, space-intruding pests.

When I moved, we set up a deal where I get my comics shipped to me once a month and then I mail a check. I could shop at the local store in Asheville, but it’s unimpressive. You’ve seen it, I think. It’s leaning toward the gaming crowd, but it does boast a nice variety of comics and trades. It’s not a bad store, and the owner remembers my name even as his never sticks in my head. But it’s not home cooking. It’s not Tangled Web. Daniel’s earned my loyalty as a customer, and I think we’re friends. As a friend, I’m supporting his business. Just so happens my friend offers the best option. Win-win for all.

Anyhow, I wanted to give you an overview of what kind of stuff I read and hopefully display the variety available to readers. Your Sister is still reading all the Elektra material I have, and I hand her random comics that are accessible for casual comic readers. One has to beware of excess reliance on backstory -- a tenet publishers still don’t remember.

She-Hulk: What started as a straight-forward character spin-off of the Incredible Hulk – Bruce Banner gives blood transfusion to wounded lawyer cousin; she makes with the green and angry – has morphed into a cheesecake wink at comic conventions. Her original by-the-numbers title gave way to another heavily influenced by the “Moonlighting” TV series; she often talked directly to readers as she struggled to make sense of pig-costumed space truckers and villains with bells for heads. The character realized she could become tall, green, and strong without being a giant angerball and for a long time stayed in that form instead of her original mousy persona. Her current title sees her as a defense lawyer for supervillains in a comic that revels in comic absurdity while providing genuinely funny and touching stories. Marvel Comics likes to compare it “Ally McBeal.” As if anyone remembers that show.

New Avengers: Marvel established a superhero group to compare to DC Comics’ Justice League, more popularly known as the Super Friends. The Avengers now includes Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and others. A new creative team jumpstarted a new series run and changed up the membership. This is simple superhero comics. No innovations of storytelling in art or writing. But it’s bright, kinetic, and witty.

Solo: DC Comics is printing this title which lets an artist have an entire comic to draw whatever he wants. The initial run has been stellar in variety and quality. It’s a textbook in techniques and storytelling. Of course, it’s going to be canceled soon.

JLA Classified: The DC version of Avengers, except this title hands the team over to different writer/artists teams to tell one story and then pass it on. It’s the classic membership: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, etc.

Astonishing X-Men: Marvel gave the writer of “Angel,” “Buffy,” and “Firefly” his own title to write Marvel’s mutant franchise. He’s knocking it out of the park, referring back to decades-old continuity and introducing new angles. He’s made this the best of the many mutant titles, by far.

Fantastic Four: This is Marvel’s flagship title, the one that started their superhero universe and the touchstone for the Marvel elements of cosmic weirdness, internal conflict, arrogant villains, and big ole monsters. I drop the title and pick it up every few years as creative teams arrive and run out of steam. The recent film got virtually nothing right about the comic except for its flavor.

Uncanny X-Men: The first title of the mutant franchise, and this is by the writer who made the X-Men the comic book for years and years. X-Men was the Harry Potter of comics in the ‘80s and remains my touchstone for involving comic book drama. He’s lost a step in the last few years, and his clichés have become crutches. But it still sparks the same emotional chord it plucked when I was barely a teen.

Ultimates: Here’s a prime example of how comics get confusing. Marvel wanted to make its properties more accessible to new readers coming in, hopefully, from the many recent movies. But Marvel will enrage their loyal customers if they just drop all stories and reboot. Instead, they keep the current titles and continuity and start a new line of comics with their own shared universe. New costumes, new personalities and stories. They keep the names and costume themes. Ultimates is the newer, alternate version of the Avengers, not to be confused with the old-continuity title called New Avengers. I told you it’s confusing. Whereas New Avengers feels like a well-done superhero comic, Ultimates feels like a well-done action movie.

Nextwave: This is a comic that doesn’t take itself seriously yet provides all the big comic action and attitude. It’s written by an often-drunk Scottish misanthrope who loves cutting edge technology. A group of minor heroes fights a terrorist group using monsters to attack America. A recent story featured the team fighting Fin Fang Foom, a giant lizard who wears purple underwear.

Hellboy: Here’s a horror action comic reliant on world myth, Edger Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. I mean, come on, this is right up my alley. The movie got a lot right but shoehorned in a needless love story. Hellboy is not about love; it’s about fighting predestination. The hero is a demon who is crucial to a prophesied Armageddon, but he fights for the good guys and stomps the nasty monsters.

Ex Machina: In this alternate history title, a former NY superhero becomes mayor. It’s very mundane, dealing with political and bureaucratic policies much like ”West Wing,” but the mayor uses his weird super power to smooth things along. Most notably, his presence alters 9/11 and the city’s reaction to it.

Tom Strong: A science-based superhero in the style of Buck Rogers and Doc Savage protects Millennium City from a host of cartoonish threats. This is a comic book unafraid to be a comic book. It doesn’t try to lure readers with trendy angst and headline-ripped subplots. It’s just good comics.

Planetary: In this world, the Fantastic Four are bad guys and control the dissemination of technology and super powers. A secret group investigating global weird archaeology decides the bad guys have controlled the world long enough. It’s both a world-spanning adventure and a personal story of redemption and vengeance. It’s cool and smart, written by the aforementioned drunk creating Nextwave.

Superman: As DC readies for the new movie, they are reviving a character that gets surprisingly dull every few years. The obvious point here is that he’s been around forever and can do anything. Given that attitude, yeah, it might be hard to write Superman comics. But all one has to do is look at the unique properties of the comic – superhero lives undercover married to a fellow newspaper reporter in a city economically dominated by his archenemy, fights threats from bank robbers to cosmic invaders, vulnerable to rocks from home planet and magic, is seen as the lynchpin of the superhero community, dotes on adopted farmer parents – and I can give you two years’ worth of stories in an hour. That’s a fundamentally ripe orchard for comic stories.

That’s what I read, apart from random miniseries and independent-publisher graphic novels.

Picture of the Day
Joy of joys. My current favorite wrestling gimmick, the evil male cheerleader Spirit Squad, won the WWE tag team belts last night. Even typing that makes me smile like an idiot. Did I mention they cheat with help of a mini-trampoline? And they really can’t cheer worth a damn?

In the news
Tom DeLay won’t seek re-election. It’s not that surprising. He’s been a non-factor since stepping down as Majority leader, but he did just win the GOP primary for the Congressional seat. His departure separates his tarnished image from the party before the November elections. He hurts them in a few ways:
a) his top aide just plead guilty to charges stemming from the Abramoff lobbying scandal;
b) he’s fighting the campaign corruption charges in Texas over gerrymandering and laundering;
c) he reminds people that the GOP is willing to chuck aside the party platforms of state sovereignty and individual privacy, as it did over the Schaivo case.

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Saddam is being indicted under additional genocide charges, including gassing Kurds.

Hot Damn.

WrestleMania, despite its so-so build-up, was a [Arnold voice] FUHNTAZTIC show [/Arnold voice]. Chicago delivered a hot crowd that turned on the good-guy champ like he shot their dog, and he still won. We got back from the grocery store with ten minutes before the show started, and we had a ball watching it. Well worth the $50. Get the replay if you have even the slightest interest. DirecTV did their best to give me the Hulk Tantrum by giving me the run around Sunday. I used the remote to order the PPV Saturday night and called them Sunday to confirm. The customer-service operator says her computer is frozen, and she can’t confirm my order. She sends me to the website. I go there, set up an account, and check my PPV order status … and it tells me to call customer service. I do but use the automated system to put in another order, and it tells me I already have. Confirmation. Huzzah. And I don’t have to kill anyone.

The weekend was fun. Your Sister didn’t do squat and spent most of Saturday reading. I finished up the second Harry Potter book (so much better than the film) and sketched a bit. We ate that night at Juan’s and I enjoyed a grande Dos Equis. We flip around the TV channels and find Monty Python on BBCAmerica. And Your Sister finally got the see the Spanish Inquisition and Spam sketches. Now she is truly a woman.

Sunday, after turning our clocks ahead, we grabbed some KFC and ate on rocks in the Pisgah Forest streams. The weather was just great for it.

I had three coffee drinks this weekend, including two yesterday. There was concern that it would drop me over in a coma before the PPV, but I seemed fine. Slept OK and woke up this morning even with the end of daylight savings.

The flu bug may be gone, but now it seems we are beset by pollen allergies. Suddenly, all the valves in my head stop up at once, and I can’t breathe. It’s very disturbing. I tried some of Your Sister’s antihistamine and DayQuil.

Sketch Day
OK, we’re gonna get the Star Wars picture done. I’ll start off this week posting the more polished versions of the pose thumbnails, and each week I’ll post the progress.

In the news
The Supremes passed on a chance to rule on the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects. I listened to some of the oral arguments on the case involving Osama’s driver, and the judges were giving the government lawyer a hard time for his interpretation of war powers.

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Studios will being selling online versions of theatrical films this week. They can be burned to a DVD but only for play on a PC authorized by your sales contract, much like you can only authorize five copies of iTunes under your user name.

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Wal-Mart lost its standing as the top Fortune 500 Company to Exxon. Since the list began, there have only been three companies to head the list. GM is the other one.