Revving Up in Various Ways

The three of us put on warm-weather clothes and trekked outside. I wanted to run and pulled out the sneakers from the closet. The run was hard, and I knew it would be. I hadn't run in months, and I was taking the newer route, the one for which I have no muscle memory. I slowed to a brisk walk at some spots, but I forced myself to run farther between those breaks. Your Sister walked with the deputy in the opposite direction, and we arrived home at the same time. I knew I'd be sore the next day. It wasn't until I walked out of my shower and saw my new sneakers under the end table that I realized I had run in my old, broken sneakers, and I knew that the next day's soreness would be far worse than I first thought. And it was. And still is. I'm beat up bad.

It didn't help that I had to wrestle with the lawnmower to drain its oil. This was the first time I had unbolted anything off it, and everything was attached at factory tension. My hands are a mess. I did win eventually, and the old oil plopped into a re-purposed tea jug in the shed.

I got into the workshop for the first time in a week and scanned in my comic page sketches. I  expanded the initial thumbnails into sketch-book page layouts. Now I'll put a quick version of the script over the sketches to see if the word-balloon placements will work. I'll probably have to whittle the script down to fewer words, and I worry about the flow of dialogue once that's done.

These page sketches are roughly 2 x 3 inches on a 6 x 9 page.

And these are the pages filling those sketchbook pages.

Now I have 24 sketched pages to gaze at and find the mistakes. I've also roughed out a cover. while minding the boy, I ruled out the page dimensions on my art boards, and they await the artwork. I have just under three months to get this drawn and lettered. I feel good about this.

The helpful Lutheran pamphlet spelled out how Lutheranism is distinct from the Catholic church and, say, Baptists. It's a cheerful sales pitch, and I don't have any trouble initially with Your Sister's plan to sprinkle the boy. But there is a passage about how the faithful are "beggars at the foot of the cross," and that pings my radar. Also there are repeated mentioned of breaking down the ego to build up the faith. While I don't want him to be a jerk, I don't want him constantly berating himself to fulfill dogma. I don't agree that one becomes enlightened by emotionally destroying yourself on a regular basis.Of course, I like to chug uphill for a half-hour on sidewalks, but I get the euphoria of endorphins. And then I drink Sprite in the shower, so I get caffeine-free sugar bubbles. Until the Lord's Supper involves moderate cardio exercise and a shot of pop, I'll stick to running. And the thrill of making comics, of course.

Reverence and Honesty

As we sat down for reubens and sweet potato fries, Your Sister mentioned a few things about the sidekick's day: he seems to recognize a request to roll on his side, he understands what "cat" means, and she wants to get him christened.

Well, huh.

She said she went to the local Lutheran church to talk to their priest about it. She seemed happy with the conversation, and she was informing me this was what she wanted and wondered what I thought of it.

Throw your brilliant mind back five years. She wanted to get married at the Anglican church we attended then, and, by "we," I mean she was a member, and I was a semi-regular pew companion. I knew little to nothing about Anglicanism, and I was curious. I liked the priest's messages a lot. He had great delivery. It was with this priest that she asked about a wedding there, and he informed us that the church would have to approve my divorce. That rankled us both, and the warning of mandatory marriage counseling didn't help. I told her that we didn't need someone else to tell us how to work our relationship. We defined it through a prolonged courtship, creating plateaus for each of us and both of us, and moving forward as we conquered each mutually agreed milestone. We thought this through, probably to a fault, and we didn't need a third party shoehorning in to give us what-for, especially a third-party that was going to step on her feminist toes.

I told her that I would gladhand and amen my way through the whole process if she wanted, including the church wedding, but I would tell her what I would tell no one else: my fingers would be crossed the whole time. I'd lie to everyone involved except her. I wasn't going to start our marriage on a string of lies to her, and she needed to know where I stood as she decided to marry me.

She wilted at the idea of subjecting me to what appeared to be a prescribed shaming by the church hierarchy; the priest would pass my divorce deposition up the ladder, and they would decide if I was well and truly divorced. This would add to our delay to get married. This was before we found out we bought a house and decided to wed immediately before moving in. So the whole idea was dropped. No divorce testimony and approval process, no counseling to tell her to mind her place and fetch my slippers, and no wedding in the church.

The whole thing bothered her so much we stopped attending the church, and it's only been in the last year that she's tried out some local assemblies, starting with Anglican and moving to Lutheran. We've talked along the way about what kind, if any, of religious foundation we'll give him. While it's not my bag, I deferred to rearing him in the denomination she preferred on the condition that I will petition when they start telling him he's a worthless, horrid creature doomed to hell probably predestined to burn no matter how good he is. That's how I was raised, and I'm here to tell you it stinks on ice, and no one is talking like that to my boy while hiding behind a pulpit.

I had no idea she considered christening the deputy, but I'm not so surprised. I can't say I object upfront. I don't know what it entails, and that's what I told her. I have no reason to veto the idea, but my understanding of christenings comes from pop culture depictions, and they're usually Catholic. I suspect Lutherans invest different significance to it, probably with distinct obligations by the attendees. It's those presumed obligations that I said might be am obstacle. I need to know what, if anything, the priest will ask we swear to regarding his upbringing. I don't take a lot of oaths, and I take seriously those I do proclaim. I need a briefing on the matter. But again, I'll gladhand and amen through it if it's what she wants. I won't lie to her about it. I don't tell her this to burden her decision but to allow her to make as informed a choice as possible.

I don't rustle my leaves at the idea of dabbing him with water and hoping the best for him (Do Lutherans christen with holy water? See, I don't even know the basics here.). If the ceremony gives Your Sister a stronger sense of confidence in his kindness and well-being, I won't poo-poo it. But I will remind her that he won't have a clue what we're doing, and we still have to steer him toward civilization, with or without a midday spritzing and a benediction.

And with that we gobbled dinner. She has just returned from yoga and was starving.

After, we discussed Valentine's Day, and she reminded me I hadn't used her gift from last year: an hour massage at the spa we all visited before the wedding. I insisted she use it; she's got the twigged back from carrying around the boy. She said, if she did use it, she would worry I'd get her another gift, a "real" one that I would buy. I promised I wouldn't. I said I'd swear to it if I could find something I held sacred to swear upon. I had an idea, opened the pantry, and pulled out a bottle of wing sauce. I swore upon the condiment that I wouldn't buy her a second gift if she used the massage certificate. She said she'd think about it.

Can we christen with wing sauce? Can he be as delicious as he is adorable?

Picture of the Day
A peek at the making of the Star Wars Lifeday Special.

My Fellow Americans

The teething is already calming down. The teeth are erupting quickly, and he slept through the recent nights with only one dab of the gum medicine per bedtime. Maybe we got lucky. He turns seven months today. I can feel the time we've spent caring for him, but it's hard to remember him being smaller than he is now.

He attended a second library event, and it's my hope he'll watch the other kids move around and be inspired to start crawling. He's getting there, but he can't quite get from shoving with his toes to alternating weight on his knees.

+  +  +

We built the evening around watching the State of the Union address and the two responses. Popcorn and M & Ms were devoured. We liked the speech -- the organization and flow were top-notch -- and I was impressed that he ended the speech with the official decree of the state of the union. He suggested detailed notions on how to cut spending and reduce government, and that undercuts the opponents who nonetheless claimed he provided no such ideas.

The official post-speech response is, at best, a mix of gainsaying and dittos, and this year, at least, wasn't a trainwreck like the 2009 speech by Bobby Jindal. The Tea Party response by Michelle Bachmann, however, did fall to that level, and I expected nothing less; she's daffy. I believe she compared the Obama administration to the Japanese in WWII:

Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. Who can say that we won't see a miracle again? The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds, and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

Yeah, I think it's there.

+  +  +

In another attempt to snag mainstream coverage, Marvel printed a story in which one of the Fantastic Four dies. Now, anyone who has read hero comics for more than three years knows that no one stays dead, but this is the flagship franchise for the Marvel Universe of heroes.It's is somewhat newsy.Yes, Spider-Man is better recognized, and the X-Men make more money, but the FF were the comic that created the Marvel style of angsty heroes and a common theatre of operations. Also, they were the first hero group made up of heroes we hadn't seen before; all the previous hero groups were all-star assemblies. Even people who don't know the FF comic know the FF premise: Pixar's The Incredibles is essentially the FF with swapped powers, and the film's final villain, The Underminer, is a mix of Sub-Mariner and Mole Man.

I have managed to avoid the spoilers for now, but there's no way I can keep it a secret from myself before I get my books in two weeks. Still, there's only four possible candidates; supposition takes about 30 seconds. I mentioned this to-to to Your Sister, and we spent a good ten minutes debating who should have been whacked, and I again realized I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Incidentally, we both agreed that Johnny Storm should get the axe. He's a younger version of Tony Stark and therefore redundant. His death also provides an immediate solution: Can a man made of fire really die? Would he necessarily stay dead?

Motion Geekiness of the Day
You can make your own Star Wars opening text crawl here. It looks better larger, but I shrank mine to fit it here.

Flashback

As I sketch my comic out near the printed size, I realized that the time crunch can be addressed if I alter my drawing style. I grew up as comic art blossomed with detail and camera placement. In particular, I was lucky enough to see one artist, George Perez, drastically improve during his tenure on a book called New Teen Titans. This was one of my favorite titles for years, and it ran at the same time Uncanny X-Men (another favorite) was becoming THE Marvel title with the Phoenix story used in the film trilogy. I imprinted on that '80s style of art, and my comic art is heavily influenced by it. I'd love my art to look like that

However, I now have a bambino, and I can't devote the same amount of time to drawing this year's comic. Last year's comic was a happy experiment, but my struggles with time crimped the artwork. I have to do things differently. I realized Friday that I need a simpler art style, and I was reminded of artist Paul grist who makes a comic called Jack Staff. Now, my favorite artist is Alan Davis, but I have to stop trying to draw like Alan and lean much more toward Paul.

This is Alan Davis artwork. I have to cast this aside.

This is Paul Grist work. I shall look to this.

I picked up a clutch of Jack Staff comics Friday and started sketching the page layouts with this simplified style in mind. It's helped, and I feel more confident about the progress. I have to get the whole comic sketched by the end of the month to give myself almost three months to hammer it out before I print it. Another benefit of the style is that it helps sell the story. It's possible my comic ideas benefit from a more cartoony style versus the super-clean style of mainstream comics.

That night, I almost passed out from joy when our new favorite series, Fringe, made a strong connection to Twin Peaks. This comes about a year after it directly referenced X-Files as part of the show's history. So, these series then exist in the same world. The Peaks reference was fleeting and existed solely to catch the ears of genre fans like me, and it worked. Twin Peaks was an obsession from the first episode. You could tell it was a different kind of show from the initial advertising campaign, but I wasn't prepared for a show that moved and sounded and looked so different from everything else on TV at the time. And it was massively influential. Consider these:

• The soundtrack introduced my generation to acid jazz/lounge music, which revived the cool and charm of the Rat Pack and Vegas.
• It brought back noir, right down to conflicted heroes and smoky dames. That last was of crucial importance to me. This was back when girls were still wearing that poof of forehead hair, and the Peaks gals were straight out of the 1950s.
• The oddball, small-town quirkiness set the stage for Seinfeld, the "show about nothing." The original Seinfeld pilot debuted a year before Peaks, but it was only brought back after Peaks's success as a parade of weird characters acting under their own logics.
• It set the stage for Silence of the Lambs and the serial killer cultural obsession. Peaks and its serial-killer mystery debuted almost a year before Lambs. Not only do the films share a dark, arboreal tone and federal pursuit of a faceless serial killer, but the film cribs the show's credit font.

We drove to Asheville Saturday to clothes shop and get some time out of the house before Tuesday's predicted snowfall, and Your Sister noticed that morning that the sidekick was teething. We could feel the tips of the lower two teeth at the gumline. That night, the pain started, and we were all miserable. We bought Orajel Sunday afternoon, and it helped him get through last night. Hopefully, this weekend is the worst of it. We understand that the first eruption of teeth is peak of his discomfort. It's supposedly is much smoother with all the later teeth.

Way back in September, Your Sister picked the two teams that will play in the Super Bowl in two weeks, Pittsburgh and Green Bay. I honestly like both teams so much, I can't pick which to root for.

We've discovered a new easy side dish: sweet potato fries. They are ridiculously easy to make. I'm sure Doom will speak on this soon.

Shanghaied

You may have noticed a new text block on the right. I noticed in my Goggle stats that I was getting traffic from that site, and I figured it was the usual phishing link scam. But this site actually posts my blog link on their page among others it claims contribute to its gallery of reviews. I do not. The site offers nothing in the way of contact links, leaving me no way to tell them to go eat a bug. Petitioning blogspot's legal department requires me to scan and upload my driver's license for legal verification, but I don't want that online, even squirreled away in Google's virtual subbasements.

We hooked up our dish receiver box to our internet to play with On Demand video. DirecTV offers a legion of free films and shows organized by channel. You scan through and find the show you want, and it downloads to our recorder. It's like Hulu, right down to the cost: free. And that's confusing. I can watch a HBO series, for instance, whenever I want without paying for the HBO channel. If I pay for HBO, I'd have to wait for shows to air in HBO's schedule to watch them. Seems like HBO would charge for any-time access to their programs. DirecTV offers free access to programming from channels we don't pay for, and now I can't see why we would ever pay for those channels.

The sidekick is inching closer to crawling. He can get his knees underneath him and push with his toes. He's making the transition from swimming. But he'll need to build up his neck muscles to carry that gigantic noggin around.

The comic work continues apace as the sketchy thumbnails become tighter and I move my imaginary camera around the action. I'll post progress work later.

Picture of the Day
I didn't know they closed-captioned R2. Was there a committee to organize noises into appropriate emotional categories? How do you get that job?

Dumb Dubbing Dammit

The dubbed cassette music is muddy, and I blame the lack of equalization on the tape player. I've decided to buy the albums from iTunes (if available) over the next few months. I waited ten years or so for the music in digital form. I can wait a little more.

I found on Amazon a MP3 version of the Depeche Mode album I mentioned yesterday. Amazon sells it for $7 including remixes of the whole CD. That beats iTunes. With prices that low, I can buy the digital files in one batch instead of stretching it over a few paychecks. I'll have to go with CDs for Def Leppard as they aren't on iTunes for whatever reason. I don't understand why artists wouldn't want to be on iTunes. They stand to make more per download than they would through physical CD sales. Not everyone will have the kind of reception and immediate success The Beatles did when they went to iTunes. I mean, look at me, Lepprd. Look at the lengths I'm going to for your music. But I'm a diehard fan. How many casual fans could you ring up at the register if you hopped on iTunes?

The sidekick attended his first library kids' event. As one of the youngest there, he was the object of fascination of the other kids. I hope this boosts his immune system. His flu seemed to pass within a week. As did mine. He was a terror to put down last night. He was clearly sleepy, but he wouldn't gear down, and it took both types of milk (bottle and tap) to get him down. I'll try it again tonight when Your Sister goes to yoga, and I hope my limited supply can do the job.

I checked on Your Parents' house, and all seemed well. The plants were watered, and the oil furnace is near capacity. I really like that basement and it's half-bath. That would make a great workshop for my stuff. I assume a local kid is feeding the cat, but she doesn't seem to be cleaning the litter box. I'll tend to it if there's no improvement by next week.

Picture of the Day
Now that Michael Steele has left the RNC post, it seems his character will be retired by The Daily Show. They smelled this change in the breeze and introduced a John McCain puppet last week. So he's my avatar for now.

Rewind

Listening to music from my wide-eyed days has shaken me to the gray-haired roots. I copied and heard the two Twin Peaks soundtracks and Depeche Mode's Songs of Faith and Devotion, a quasi-industrial record based on religious imagery. So, yes, your typical dramatic college music. But it all holds up. I think it does, anyway. I'm pretty sure I'm not bolstering it to validate my old interests. I mean, I have no problem mocking my old fashion sense, including my perpetual trenchcoat and dangling earrings. No wonder college buddies took me to gay bars. My afternoon was a fog of distortion and deep, repetitive bass tones. I remembered mindsets long shelved, and I wonder if this is how midlife crises start.

Probably didn't help that I had the Naked Lunch movie running in the background. I saw this film at ECU's old student center cinema and loved it. I was already a reader of Burroughs, and I thought the movie was a dead-on adaptation of a novel that was supposedly impossible to adapt. Legend has it Burroughs was so whacked out on drugs that he didn't know his friends had published his writings until after the book was printed and making money. The film is about a bug exterminator who disappears into a hallucination of a foreign land after he accidentally kills his wife. Burroughs actually did kill his wife in the manner the film gives us: He would shoot glasses off her head in what they called the William Tell party trick. The last time they did it, he missed the glass.

Comparing the film to the book was an evoltuonary advance in my critical thinking skills. Seing it again yesterday revealed what I missed the first times I watched it, yet it felt like slipping on an once beloved shirt. A lot of intensely earnest English majors go to the beatniks for at least a few months, and I chose Burroughs over Ginsberg and Kerouac. He was Hunter S. Thompson before Hunter was Hunter.

 I had this soundtrack on CD, and I remember My Mom hearing it waft out of my bedroom and asking if it was supposed to sound like an acid trip.

"Heroin," I corrected her, and she walked off wondering why they just didn't buy a cat instead of siring a weirdo.

I was initially drawn back from the ennui abyss by my cassette of a Paul Simon anthology, but the tape flows from bouncy '70s pop to a crowd of heartbreak and nostalgia, and that didn't help what was becoming the damp, drizzly November in my soul. Then I ended the night by reading from Steven King and having a dream incorporating Silence of the Lambs (Your Sister and I bought a house with bodies packed behind the clapboards, and suspicion grew that one of us was responsible). My brain has tumbled backward 20 years, and I'm simultaneously invigorated and exhausted from all that black-box urgency.

My iPod-powered commute will definitely have a different tinge to it. I wish car stereos allowed us to tune into others' iPods during commutes. I always wonder what mixes other folks have crafted.

Picture of the Day
This image reminds me that I started sketching my comic pages at a larger size. This is the hard work of tightening camera angles and solving anatomy problems.The final large pages will be a cinch once this step is completed.

Clearing Away the Debris

I once had boxes of cassettes. As part of my bedroom cocoon in high school, I taped songs off the radio for my imaginary radio station, and I had as many official tapes I'd buy at the mall. Moving a number of times in ten years whittled them down to a shoebox of treasured albums: Twin Peaks, Depeche Mode, adaptations of The Shadow, Hamlet and Les Miserables.

I had the notion for years now to burn them to digital files, but my two options involved elaborate Goldbergian methods to make copies or paying someone to do it for me. The local radio store does this, and I hesitated, hoping a simplified option would emerge, and finally it did.

Using Audacity, the software I already have for remixing music, I learned I only needed a dubbing cable to connect a tape player with the laptop. Luckily, we had a tape player. Unluckily, the store most likely to have that cable, Radio Shack, isn't open on weekends. Because, really, who shops on weekends? I hopped into Kmart on the off-chance they'd have it, and they did. The packaging is so contemporary, it doesn't mention cassette dubbing. I am a man from the distant past.

Your Sister lent me her classroom tape player, and I've already made copies of my Def Leppard tapes. I was surprised to see how many tapes I had already replaced with albums bought off iTunes, but I will be able to hold onto my drama adaptations and hear them during my commute. This tape copying has lingered over my head for years. It's a relief to chip away at that cloud.

I also chopped at the driveway ice, and the remnants were sizable. The flat area was still a sheetcake of snow and ice, and it took more than an hour Sunday to clean it away. I only worked at it because we're predicted to get more ice and snow this week, and I didn't want to surrender any ground to the elements.

We took the sidekick sledding Saturday morning. It was a passive experience for him; Your Sister and I took turns holding him as we went down hills at the school. This was my first time as I grew up in flat lands, and I stunk at it. Your Sister was on a varsity skill level, diving belly first on the sled and down the hill. She's determined to get back into pre-baby recklessness. No, not recklessness. Spontaneity. We then left for lunch, and she inhaled a bowl of chili.

I made simple borders for some of my comic pages and ordered a mess of more. I tried Amazon, but the storefront wanted to charge me shipping for each bundle I bought. Instead, I went to the manufacturer and bought more than twice as many pages for the same amount I would have paid Amazon. Now I have 100 pages lurching through the mail service toward our citadel of ice. The month is half over. I have to start cranking out art.

Picture of the Day
Keep within reach at all times.

Cooking With Villainy Supplemental

Dear Warren Ellis who just posted a recipe,

Doom warns you that Doom is working this corner.

Not that your dish does not intrigue Doom. Mayhap Doom will command a chefbot to whip it up while Doom is off conquering Asia. Don't get all atwitter. Doom said "mayhap."

Yours in Christ,
Doom

Putting My Back Into It

A strange, yellow object appeared in the sky yesterday afternoon, and it brought warmth and light. I remain confused and frightened. The city's storm passed by, and our road was obviously plowed again. The driveway had a new inches-high border of frozen gunk. But what caught my eye were the tire tracks near the carport. Clearly, Your Sister tried to leave the house, and the car couldn't make it. She managed to get the car back in the garage.

When I asked about it, she said she tested the driveway before loading it with gear and child. She could back out, but the car wouldn't get up the caked pavement to the road. She had to free it from the packed snow to get it back into the garage. And that gets me worried. If something were to happen to her or the sidekick, she's stuck. That won't do. I offered to shovel the driveway on the spot (about 6:30 after I just got home), and she said she'd rather have me indoors than out there. OK, I said.

Cut to this morning, and I hop out of bed before the sun does. Most of the slop is powder, and it shovels away in convenient clumps. The tire tracks are iced, however, and I could only chip away at them with the broom head. If I chop at them with shovels, I might have woken the neighbors. Or their babies. So I stayed polite and stuck to the quiet cleaning.

After about an hour, all that remains are the tracks, and already the lingering snowdust was evaporating. If she needs to get out today, she should be able to. I feel for her: I can imagine the cabin fever she's suffering. She was still in bed when I showered and dressed, but she mumbled good morning.

"You should be able to get out of the driveway easier today," I said.
"Yeah, it should be warmer."
"Yeah."
"Wait. You didn't shovel it, did you?"
"Yes."
"Oooohhhh."
"Just remember this the next time I do something stupid."

I expected her to say this was something stupid. It was mighty cold, after all. The feeling returned to my fingers only when I got in the shower. Still, I'll need to get up early to work on the comic pages, and they will seem much easier compared to hunching over and heaving snow for an hour. I'm sure I'll feel all that work after eight hours sitting at a desk.

Speaking of comic pages, I'm officially on the list of artists for the May convention. Note that I am not listed as a card artist, meaning they won't be using my art for a collector card. It thus becomes a flyer.

Pictures of the Day
These are two new images of upcoming Marvel heroes.
The first is Captain America, the first "official" film in what will become the Avengers franchise, including Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk. The second is the new actor playing Spider-Man in a reboot of the franchise.

Digging Out

A third day of shoveling ended with dry pavement around the car and a road caked with snow. Unlike with previous storms, this ice and snow have turned to Styrofoam. It's much slicker to walk on, but walk I did to check the conditions of the road leading to ours. It looked clear from what I could see, and that part remained clear as I drove to work this morning. But the stretch just around the bend is just like the road outside our house: caked and slick. I also drove into sideways snow halfway to work. The city is a mess again. I'm supposed to tend to Your Parents' house while they're gone, but I won't get there until next week.I have to get Your Sister out of the house this weekend before she cracks. Although, we have taken to primetime hot toddies as we eviscerate each other at Jeopardy. Weak ones. She's still breast feeding, after all.

I expanded my comic to a more-traditional 24 pages from the previous 19 by beefing up the fight scenes. I printed out comic pages at the size I'm looking at for this year's hero comic, and I think it will show off the art better and sell better. It will be twice as tall as last year's books. It will also cost more so I'll print fewer of them. I've got to start penciling soon. I have four months before the convention.

Our buddy Kathy dropped by yesterday to drop off some videos and CDs as a follow-up to conversations from last Saturday. She and Travis have borrowed our "one and done" parenting discipline and adapted it to "two and through." They call it bolstering to define their family to people asking when they'll have more. I congratulated them on the stance and said this is what they mean by "planned parenthood." Family doesn't have to be random.

Picture of the Day
MAC Cosmetics has launched a line of Wonder Woman products.

Thoughts on Tucson (Again)

I like the idea of continuing the decal decor as the deputy ages. Those images are cool.

We watched the Monday installment of the Daily Show, featuring Stewart's request for a change of rhetoric so we can distinguish discourse from insane ramblings.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona Shootings Reaction
www.thedailyshow.com
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And then we talked for a bit.

Our points:
1) Politicians used to kiss babies. Now they wield guns. Guns have become the symbol of political expression in a country founded on election cycles moderating revolution. When you can vote and impeach and recall, you don't have to take up arms against your government. But the notion that the government is within minutes of instigating martial law is too profitable for those who woo audiences with fear and paranoia. The NRA contacted me just within the last two weeks to ask for my help against a mythical nationwide gun ban to be magically imposed by the United Nations.

The 2010 campaign featured fundraiser events where voters could shoot machine guns, sometimes with the candidate. Healthcare protesters carried guns to town hall meetings, allegedly to prove their political firepower.This latest asshole, this shooter, he did exactly the same thing: He took a gun to a political event. And until the second he pulled the trigger, he's supported by those who advocate "gun rights." But when he fired, he magically became crazy and dangerous. I argue he was dangerous before that.

I'm for hunters owning hunting rifles. I'm for collectors buying replicas. But handguns are designed for mobility and quick fire. Cops can have them (cops can have anything, frankly), and sky marshals should have them. Law enforcement, I'm talking here. Personal citizens don't need concealed handguns. The boogieman of rogue cops or federal military coming to your house won't be stopped by handguns, which is why the NRA supports automatic rifles and machine gun ownership. Look, if the military is coming for you, they don't have to knock on your door. They have bombs. They have drones, missiles, chemicals, and snipers. Gun advocates learned a lot from Waco. So did the federal agents.

2) Crazy is relative. Your Sister noted the special-ed kids she teaches. They are separated from the majority student body schedules and criteria because they can't handle expectations. This stunted ability to handle mundane tasks could easily classify them as limited to the same degree a crazy gunman. He was able to hire a cab to drive to the event, and he walked in with the cabbie to the store to break a $20. He managed to keep his composure until he aimed the gun. He wasn't a drooling, flailing maniac. His past behavior suggests at least an eccentricity, delusions, and antisocial demeanor that kept him marginalized and angry. But that's not "crazy." Sullen, perhaps. Emo, maybe. A jerk to the fifth power, I'll grant you.

So what makes him crazy, and for how long does the definition of crazy stretch back along his personal chronology from the gunshots? Was he crazy on Friday? Last year?

"Crazy" is a convenient label. It suggests that he would go violent and irrational no matter what environment he dwelt in. That relieves some burden of introspection from those who may have been even indirectly influential, those who threw our violent imagery during the recent campaigns. And I agree that he's directly responsible. He's not a robot. He chose his target and the manner of attack. But why didn't this happen before? Why now? Why this way? He had a YouTube page, Facebook, and MySpace. He was connected and swimming online among us. He had the same access to the rhetoric and the means to debate it online. He was plugged in. I consider that exposure and environs critical to his thinking.

But if "crazy will out" regardless of influence, I think we then have to park all accusations of influential media. If craziness trumps environmental factors, then drugs, heavy metal, the lack of prayer in schools, ready access to abortions, and all the other bugaboos have to be shelved. They can, by argument, be no more responsible for violence and a decline in civilization than constant angry. political accusations on the various media.

Also, handguns can't help you against the crazy. If "crazy will out," as if the crazed are invulnerable zombies, concealed weapons can't save you from the faceless enemy. Also, a concealed weapon wouldn't have kept the first bullet from hitting home. Maybe not even the third and fourth. A concealed weapon can only respond. It can't prevent. The argument for concealed weapons claims that the threat of retaliatory gunfire would deter the mugger or burglar. Except, of course, for the crazy, right? They're crazy; they don't operate under the logic we do.

The new argument seems to be this: In a gun culture permeated with angry accusations, everyone knew to behave themselves except for the village idiot. Someone how the one loony who couldn't distinguish rhetoric from identification grabbed his gun and went to town. Again this doesn't excuse those who construct the pollution. If anything, it should behoove them to be more mature in their product. Media broadcasts are global migrations now. The perceived audience has to expand beyond the key demographic. Even I, with this blog, am talking to you but can be, and am, accessed around the world. That's why I use "Your Sister" instead of naming her. I don't trust everyone who might read this to respect her privacy. So I filter. The possible audience reactions affects my communications. It's not limiting. It requires me to be more clever without diluting my message.

We live in a nation of mass shootings. The audience doesn't just include people who grok your intent. The violent and dangerous are among us and breathing the same air. It's senseless to pretend verbal vehemence can't wind up the easily swayed. I mean, the easily swayed are a key demo. They'll buy without thinking, they'll subscribe without considering, they'll act without doubting. Does that make them crazy? All of them? If you court the gullible, you can't then pretend your audience is devoid of them.

3) What do we want to happen now? Well, I'm not for Congress folk arming themselves. We don't need to return to dueling legislators. People attack the Capitol or the White House often, and security protects the lawmakers. As they should. (And for those who are for small government but want to beef up personal security, how do you pay for that?) The local police should work the appearances of politicians in official events. The Tucson appearance wasn't a fundraiser; it was a casual town hall meeting. The police are trained to respond and protect. Let them do their jobs.

I suppose I want the constant media to take a breath and look at itself. Not that they aren't already a narcissistic bunch. Half the job is branding and marketing, after all. But I want people to consider that we need to scale back the tone. We need to talk like adults. That's going to end the careers of some professional bomb throwers, but that's a small price to pay. If all they can do is insult people to make a living, get off the political shows and do stand-up. There's a legit arena for that kind of talk, and rare is the comic whose incited violence.

But let's remember that "inciting" exists a legal term for a reason. Words can be regarded as accountable.The "fire in the theatre" hypothetical is a classic example of inflammatory language, pardon the pun. It's not simply a concept for political gamesmanship. Intentional or not, those swayed are just that: swayed. Let's stop pretending we're all on the same frequency. Even my limited experience as a dad has already told me I'm gonna have to watch the language among kids. They don't know better than to recite. It's not just clear-thinking mature people tuning in out there. There's some dangerous fuses easily sparked.

We talked for about an hour about this, and we commented on how we hope to have responded at that event. I'd like to think I would incapacitate him for the authorities to retrieve. But if I saw him shooting people, I admit, I'd be violently angry. I'm pretty sure he expected to be killed on site. I wonder if he feels lucky to be alive. I wonder if he feels, period. I wonder the same about those who have taken a defensive stance amid the reactions. We're not looking to blame. We're looking to salvage.

Picture of the Day
And then we watched an all-robot cast re-enact Dynasty catfights. Alexisbot9 just clocked 6Crystal-12.

Watching and Blinking

The crushing snowfall has us huddled in the cave. Your Sister jumped at the chance to shovel the driveway -- as the snow continued to fall -- just to get exercise. The dish service never cut out, and I didn't go on the roof. I bought a water gun to knock off the snow from the dish if needed, but the gun doesn't have enough distance to it to reach the dish from the ground. If we have to clear it, we must go topside. Well, I must go topside.

We've spent some time talking about the shootings in Arizona. I happened to flip channels Saturday when the news broke and watched the rumors and reports slowly congeal into fact.

It's difficult not to jump to conclusions. But I'm partial to the theory that political rhetoric influenced the shooter. The 2010 campaign was ugly, especially on the west coast, and the rhetoric got heated. There's a video spreading online of the Congresswoman speaking against a PAC campaign map that put her district under a crosshair. she said someone would get hurt. She was right.

Various accounts say the shooter fixated on the Congresswoman, possibly because he didn't get the audience from her he wanted, possibly because he blamed her for supporting the healthcare reform. He seems to have prepared for the day, and that suggests he wasn't as crazy as some need him to be. But how many people who commit mass shootings are sane?

Still, a political component can't be dismissed. He chose his target and disqualified those he knew personally. He filtered out those closest to him. He didn't commit a similar act before this. If he snapped, if he reached some point where he was nudged toward the violence, did that happen in a vacuum? I tend to doubt it.

What I hear and read now is a desperate effort for nothing to change. We should still apparently sell extended magazines for handguns. We should still use outrageous political comments to scare audiences. If he was crazy, as they argue, why should we change anything? Crazy people can't be stopped from being crazy. Except we've militarized airports because of crazy people. And we've detained suspects indefinitely because of crazy people.

I have the same stance on the environmental/climate debate: Maybe we can't alter the weather by being cleaner, but why can't we be cleaner because it's what responsible people do?

So we talk, and our voices echo off the walls as we watch the snow fall.

We cleaned out the TiFaux list by watching the Crucible. She'll watch anything with Daniela Day-Lewis. I had seen the original Wicker Man a few weeks back, and the two films make a strong argument against zealotry in all dogmas. We also watched Vantage Point, a clever political thriller buried under a needless gimmick of multiple perspectives.

I'll work from home a bit before attacking the driveway.

Picture of the Day
I can't quite make the joke between stitches and sutures.

Once More Under the Sink

She survived jury duty without sitting on a jury. And now she's free of the obligation for two years. I am back at the office as the region once again looks to the skies for a crippling snowfall.

While I was home with the sidekick, I decided to let him play with the bathroom mirror. Instead of patting the reflected image, he yanked on the cord connected to Your Sister's radio, and it tumbled into the sink. The battery compartment holds three batteries, and it popped open. I could only find two batteries, and it appeared the third went down the drain. I set down the baby and pulled apart the drain. No battery. But now I know how to take apart her sink to attack clogs. I should mention that all this happened while the Terminix guy was checking out the house, and I had to move between the baby, the disassembled sink, the panicky cat, and the exterminator's sales pitch for an expensive termite protocol. I found the missing battery hours later behind the bathroom door.

When she got home, we somehow got onto the topic of Solomon Grundy, the bad guy from the old Superfriends cartoon.

He appeared years before in comics. She didn't know the original nursery rhyme from whence the comic creators got his name:

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

This is the end

Of Solomon Grundy.

I remember him as a swamp zombie, the angry body of a wealthy man murdered and tossed into the bog. Your Sister wondered what brought him back. I admitted I didn't know, and she suggested "swamp magic." "Swamp magic" is now my favorite comic-book origin. Also, it's my new band name.

It was announced during this year's consumer electronics show that the Star Wars movies are going to Blu-Ray in September. While that's no shock, the intriguing information is the inclusion of deleted and alternate scenes. I hope that includes the Biggs Darklighter scenes on Tattooine that provided Luke concrete reasons for wanting to leave home so badly. That would dovetail nicely with Anakin's frustrations at the seeming patronizing by the Jedi council.

Picture of the Day
I found this Esty storefront yesterday, and I'm tempted to buy/make one for Your Sister.

Bidness

Your Sister was dismissed early from the courthouse, and I set to work.

With a small list in hand, I zoomed to Lowe's and walked blindly through the store. After looking at sink drains (hers is busted again), I was asked by an employee if I needed help. I explained I needed to replace or fix a folding pantry door, and he showed me to a section of the store devoted to parts for folding pantry doors. I had no idea. They had exactly what I needed. I strolled on, guided by the list, and looked at snow shovels. They had but one kind, and it was plastic. That won't cut it. Literally. It won't slice through the ice we get. But they did have a replacement garage door opener, which Your Sister requested. Our door system is almost 20 years old, yet Lowe's had an exact replica of our openers. I also bought air filters.

I grabbed a Wendy's lunch to try out the new seas-salt fries (tasty, very salty) and returned home to get to fixin'. I was done in a half hour. The #!@$ pantry door is finally fixed, and Your Sister has a working door remote again.

I parked her car atop the driveway in case we get snow, but I had to move it away from the mailbox. Our postman wrote on an envelope that he wasn't obliged to deliver our mail if the mailbox is blocked. By "blocked," I assume he means "might have to walk three steps from the vehicle to the mailbox in times of wintry devastation." I thought it rude. I mean, we didn't get any mail for three days prior despite the famous pledge of the mail service to be deterred by "neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night."

As she napped, I took down the tree and minded the boy. I also took another shot at organizing our CDs onto the new iPod. It's not quite big enough. I reckon I'll buy a second one in a few months and rotate them out. I packed up the CDs and stored them in my workshop, and I call that a productive day.

I slept without medicine last night, and I can't remember any dreams. More important, I don't have any emotional seismic activity based on those dreams.

We got only a dusting of snow, and Your Sis is back to the courthouse.

Picture of the Day
Edna Mode is watching you and your hobo suit, dahling.

Get Me Off the Medicine

She's back to the jury pool, and I am home with the deputy. We enjoyed a relatively normal night with him. Maybe he's getting better.

Last night's fever dream included Dr. Gregory House, wearing a row of metal dentures like tiny cigarette lighters, joining me to visit an old girlfriend and her grumpy husband at Christmastime. I was also a teacher/prop comic who was secretly Superman. I flew off toward France but stopped to fight Lex Luthor in a meadow. I woke up when he sicced a fuzzy brown spider the size of a Doberman on my arm, and I had to throw back the covers to convince myself that no such spider was in the bedroom.

I'm getting tired of these dreams, let me tell you.

Predictions of more snow abound. 

Picture of the Day
A drink and a plane ticket sound nice.
 

A Haze of Various Quils

NyQuil got me through the night and back to work, and I am armed with DayQuil, cough drops, tea, and OJ. I don't know if one can overdose on Vitamin C, but I'm taking many a supplement and chugging the juice. I'm on the other side of this flu, and I hope it's gone by Thursday. The deputy is on the crazed-energy side of it and did not sleep much last night. So I heard, anyway. I was in a medicine coma. Your Sister and I are exhausted and sickly and on edge with each other. We immediately take innocent comments the wrong way. I do not want this.

She sat through two jury assemblies and may have to go back tomorrow for another jury pool. She is so far not on the grand jury or the jury overseeing the multiple-count criminal trial. I minded the boy, and he was cranky. He wouldn't sleep without a struggle. Wouldn't eat without a struggle. Wouldn't stay on the floor without a struggle. He was not my friend. If she goes back tomorrow, I'll again stay home with him, and I hope he's easier to handle. I was able to briefly baffle him into inertia by setting him in the laundry basket. I may set him into various containers throughout the day.

Last night's fever dream included me playing Jeopardy in a high-school gym, arguing with Your Sister over what kind of helicopter she wanted, and writing the lyrics to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast.

I thumbnailed more of the comic, and it appears I'll be able to add pages to beef up the fight scenes.

Picture of the Day
Beware. A major spoiler follows.

Outlaw Fever Dreams

I know I'm bad sick when I have weird dreams.

Last night, I dreamed I was on the commute to the textile mill where I worked one summer. On an overpass, I pulled over and accepted a job application from a man in a car. He was looking for people to warn residents about low-flying airliners. He thought I would be a good prospect because I could read a combination of Latin and Spanish.

Soon after, I decided to take an aggressive stance and steal an airliner. But I couldn't get it off the ground, and I drove it on the interstate. Eventually, I came to a traffic circle, and I took an off-ramp surrounded by tall pier columns. The plane's wings jammed in the columns, and I snuck out an escape hatch. Somehow I managed to blame the theft and subsequent massive traffic back-up on Steve Carrell. The traffic block created a ravaged parade -- think The Road -- as people shambled home and groused about Carrell and the plane theft. I stayed mum. But people started to piece together the crime, and I became paranoid that I'd be discovered. Then Your Sister woke me up. She is currently sitting in court hoping to be excused from jury duty. She left me the makings of turkey-and-tomato biscuits as a sick breakfast.

I still feel like I hold a secret that will be uncovered any minute.

We're supposed to eat buffalo wings tonight, but my throat may not allow it. Or will I overrule the flu? Stay tuned.

Picture of the Day
My head is seasick.

The Future Snuck Up On Me

The late Christmas dinner only had one parent. My Mom arrived a little early, and I made the majority of the food while the ladies passed the baby between them. He was sick, we assume, with the flu following the vaccination. The deputy had bad congestion all day, and now we have the icks. Fortunately, he seems to be past the worst of it already. This puts the kibosh on our plan to meet up with buddies for a New Year's party tonight.

Mom seemed to enjoy the small meal and exchange of presents. She brought me Devil Squares, and you might remember that I was tempted by them during our grocery run. She bought herself a digital camera, and I walked her through the basics. She's still a little skeptical that she won't have to get the photos developed. She gave the boy a Bible picture book and a new outfit. She appreciated the tile from Your Parents. Mom loved and adored and inhaled the baklava you made.

Because of the housewide bug, I didn't stay awake to greet 2011. Your Sister did while she prepared a humidifier for him. Not just a new year, but a new decade. Amazing. It greeted me with another busted drain stopper in Your Sister's bathroom. I'll probably use the Lowe's card Mom gave me to replace the drain fixtures in both bathrooms. I've fixed these -- allegedly -- too often.

A warm, dark rain is washing away all the snow (And the bad memories from 2010? Let's not carried away here.)

Picture of the Day
Know your Cyrillic. 

Cliffhanger

The good news is that the deputy got a white Christmas. The bad news is that so did all of the eastern half of the country.

My vacation started Friday, and the boy and I spent much time together as Your Sister visited old friends and attended an evening church service. All was clear. Then we woke up Saturday to a snow that never ended.

We lost satellite service around noon. Your Sister and I have passively established a morning schedule with him: she sleeps in, and I mind him until about noon, depending on how she wants to feed him. While we have plenty of frozen milk, she may have jury duty next week, and we'll need that to feed him. She also has a cold that's reduced her milk flow, leaving not much to pump and store. For now, he drinks straight from the tap.

After she awoke and I handed him over, I gussied up to climb the roof and clear the dish. I always forget how far it is from the roof edge, and my plan to jostle the dish with a broom was chucked as soon as I saw there was no way to reach the dish from the ladder. I stood on that ladder a good three minutes debating the intelligence of following through. I decided that a fall from that height onto that much snow would probably be somewhat better than landing on the ground. And with that slight comfort, I decided to try it.

Up I went, and the wenting went well at first. I dusted off the dish, and eased my way down, and it was within five feet of the ladder that I started sliding toward the gutter. I was only stopped by the mound of snow my sliding created between me and the ladder. I realized I had positioned myself on one leg, instead of keeping both shoes on the shingles. Once I got back to one flat sole and at least one toe section, I could control my movements to the ladder and gently gently gently reach my legs over to stand on it. We stayed in the rest of the day. We did Christmas in the afternoon once the sidekick was settled, and it went well. Your Sister made a new lamb recipe that was astounding, and we cut into our holiday red velvet cake.

On Sunday, I attacked the driveway, for, I think, the fifth time this year. Unlike the previous storms, this was mostly snow, and it was an easier row to hoe. I could work the shovel like a gliding plow instead of digging, lifting, carrying, and dumping it. That Girltalk album got me through it, and I again thank ye kindly. The new neighbor walked over with a beer as a way of introduction, and I told him I'd hold off until I finished the drive. He told me he was trying to dig his driveway clear so his parents could get back to Myrtle Beach. When I finished ours, I walked over to help him clear his, but he had finished already. Instead, we talked families and weather. I gave him some bags of cocoa Your Sister made before getting back inside to thaw.

We had to rescheduled today's doctor appointment for the boy, and we're aiming for Thursday. We have no idea what the weather will do for our Wednesday and Thursday plans. I've already bumped back a photo session with a high-school buddy for Thursday. It depends on how warm the air gets, and what kind of snowplow traffic we get in the next two days.

Picture of the Day
We may use these hobo signs if we try to walk into town.Before the boy came along we would trudge through the white junk to the local Italian spot. Now, we'll have to drive there if we can go at all.

Moving Forward

The music is a'downloadin' as I type.

I'm only as far as the Beastie Boys in burning our CDs. This is gonna take a while. Although, I think I already burned the Beatles so that's eight or so CDs I can skip.

I'm listening to guest-host Hal Sparks on the Stephanie Miller Show, and he's streaming the president's formal signing of the DADT repeal. I'm obviously glad it's on the way out, but the Pentagon will still need to make adjustments, and Congress could vote down any financial bills needed to make those changes. Still, this repeal is the product of political arm-wringing and generational distinctions. We no longer live in a culture where the only gay representations are limp-wristed fops or skeevy club-hoppers. The easy punchlines in the 1970s were the wispy gentlemen and niche performers like Liberache and Paul Lynde. Do you know Paul Lynde?

I think it's too simple to say AIDS humanized homosexuality to the mainstream. I don't think it was one event that made gays less abhorrent to the majority. But I think we can point to educational programming like Sesame Street that made it a point to say diversity was no sin, and when sitcoms began tackling social matters like homosexuality, it lost its stigma. I think it's similar to the thinking that a generation raised on Eddie Murphy, Tiger Woods, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, Whitney Huston, and the emergence of rap/hip-hop would have no trouble with a black president. That's why John McCain is on the wrong side of this; he seems to have never reconciled his generation's notions of gays and his personal associations with the military. Not even a gay daughter can sway him. He's entrenched. I feel sorry for his mental roadblocks, but only to the point that he's intentionally preserving the mindset.

+ + +

I'm tracking the Amazon order for Your Sister, and, while the package is officially in the state, it's on your side of it. It has three days to move four hours this way. I have my fingers crossed.

Real-Time Girl Talk Reaction
Skee-Lo mixed with T-Pau is awesome. Old Dirty Bastard + Radiohead is eye-popping.

It's What We Really Wanted

New comics are up.

Under an arrangement with My Mom, we would buy our Christmas gift, and she'll reimburse us.We decided to get a smaller stereo unit and replace the frat-boy unit I've had for most of the decade. The old one is fine, but it requires a standalone cart, and that cart clutters up the large room and it's running out of room for our CDs. Virtually all single-unit stereos include an iPod dock, and getting one of these lets us remove the cart entirely. So we bought one. That required getting a new, larger capacity iPod, and I picked up a 16G player that claims to hold 4,000 songs. That should be plenty. Now, unfortunately, I need to burn all our CDs, and this will take some time. The transition to the new stereo unit will not be immediate.

Note: We'll keep our CDs squirreled away. You'll still be able to rifle through them to burn whatever catches your eye.

Buy the two pieces meant going to Best Buy, and Best Buy was a scarf bedecked riot. I genuinely pity the associates; I've worked such jobs at Christmas time, and between the foot pain and increased employer demands, you have to handhold shoppers who haven't done their homework before walking in the door. I hope to go to stores and malls during this week's lunch breaks just to watch the madness.


Your Sister delivered cocoa to her teacher buddies during school yesterday and took the sidekick in a Santa hat. Cooing ensued, I'm lead to understand.

We're aiming at next Wednesday for a holiday meal. So far, My Mom is the only one to RSVP. You're certainly welcome too.

Picture of the Day
Maybe we'll catch up on movies during the vacation.

Don't Ask, Don't Have a Cow

We watched the Senate votes on Saturday. The final Don't Ask Don't Tell vote was originally scheduled to take place around noon before it was pushed back three hours to accommodate debate on the START Treaty. We tuned in just in time to see the DREAM Act, providing citizenship to illegal aliens who serve in the military, fail in the chamber. The DADT vote was a pleasant surprise, 65-31, and the president should sign it into law soon.

I heard the usual rhetoric about this on the drive home Friday -- DADT gives gays special rights, this will weaken the military, and it disrupts unit cohesion. When I hear the argument about rights in the military, I don't hear the obvious counter: When is bigotry upheld in the military? Soldiers can't veto their commander's orders on grounds of prejudice if they're paired with a Catholic or black or a woman. Why would they get to mumble about the gay soldier they're partnered with?. (Ignoring for the moment the old irrational notion that homosexuals have no criteria and will fuck everyone in their gender).  As George Will said Sunday:

WILL: The Marines are a small service in which every Marine is a rifleman, and their specialty is small-unit combat, and unit cohesion matters. With that said, the Marines have their orders from the commander-in-chief. You tell a Marine to take the hill, the hill will be taken, and therefore they're going to implement it.

There seems to be a mass assumption that allowing gays to serve openly means the military will place walk-in volunteers into war zones without boot camp or basic training of any kind. Anyone who signs up still has to cut muster before they're deployed. Whoever is in the war zone will be prepared and capable no matter who they dream about when they fluff up their pillow. And the rampant fears of sudden sexual harassment against straights suggests that the military won't be allowed to shut down anyone's unwanted advances. That's crap. Military discipline is still in effect. The only thing this law changes is automatic discharge for soldiers discovered to be gay. 

The deputy seems to have a small cold. We think we all three have the same nasal drip, and it's affecting his sleep patterns. He had a rough weekend but managed to sink back into his bedtime pattern last night. He and I had more time together than normal. Your Sister ran errands and finished Christmas craftwork while I watched him, and I took him to the store Sunday to give her a baby-free hour. I got frustrated with him; he was unsettled from the head cold and all our comforting tricks were failing. But I started to regard him as a miniature version of Your Sister (granted, as an outie instead of an innie), and that got me through. He seems to have gotten through the worst of it.

Picture of the Day
I've almost finished backing up my Christmas gifts.

Christmas Shopping

I scrambled through the mall, desperate to find a gift for Your Sister. I had no clue. I considered jewelry and used the constant TV ads that appeared during football games as her barometer. She wasn't having it. Said it's needless. Said she'd never get to wear it around the deputy. The first jewelery I bought her was a pair of diamond earrings. She traded them in for a wristwatch. She hadn't asked for jewelry since her last-second request for a Valentine's Day ring a few years back. She probably wants a trinket, but the commercials turn her off to the whole industry. So that's out.

I considered a Kindle/Nook, but it doesn't seem like that great a deal. The tech is eye-catching initially, but they're small and limited, and you're still paying double digits for books. There's no savings, and the machine is more fragile than a paperback and more expensive to replace. I very much like the idea of it, and I think she does too. However, I think she'd see it as a luxury. Maybe after a couple more advancements, they'll be irresistible. Besides, we didn't throw down a pile of money on bookshelves for nothing. And the final argument against buying a Kindle: Amazon gives away the software free for laptops.

I left the mall empty handed. I hoped to find the new John Mellencamp CD for her, but the mall's only record store didn't have it. I knew than that Amazon would be my lord and savior, and after about five minutes of freeform scanning, I found the gift.

It's the collected O'Brian books about Jack Aubrey, including the unfinished 21st novel. Also she'll get this:

It's an illustrations of ships from that time period. And I found that CD to give her too. Amazon saved my fish-pill-popping bacon.

Speaking of the Omega 3 pills, they make my stomach unhappy. Your Sister received a similarly solid report from the doctor yesterday. Our stats are parallel, small wonder given that we eat almost the exact same things. Her cholesterol is fine, and she will be taking none of my fish pills. Here RDW (red blood cell distribution width) was a little low, but that's not surprising. She's always cold and quick to get lightheaded. The doctor suggested that it's normal for her and possibly no cause for alarm. Considering all the junk food we eat, our overall cholesterols are strong.

Moving Picture of the Day
The first trailer for Thor, Marvel's next comic movie. Captain America follows soon after, and those will set up Avengers, with characters from the Iron Man and Hulk films.

This plot is not canon. Yes, Thor was banished from Asgard for hubris, but he was trapped in the body of a doctor with a limp working out of New York. Still, seeing big-budget Asgardian production design is cool and cool some more.

Take Your Medicine

Oh, sure. I could have bought the cheaper Omega 3 pill that gives me only 300 mg of magic fish essence. But the slightly more expensive pills give me 460 mg of Omega 3. Decision made. Bottle opened. Eyes widened.

These pills could derail a train. They are large-calibre bullets of oil.

The bottle suggests three pills a day, but the doctor says two will do. She shall be heeded. I've had three so far with no signs of gills yet.

It remains shockingly cold, and more things are to tumble from the sky tonight. My online weather source gave up on forecasting what we'll get and replaced "snow" or "rain" with "precipitation."

Your Sister today for her physical with the same doctor I just saw. We'll compare blood work when I get home.

I sent off my submission for the 2011 convention collector cards, but I'm skeptical that it will be used. Despite assurances that they would contact me in October to follow up on an August request for card art, I was told just last week that they had filled up all their card needs. It was suggested I could send in my submission, and they would use it if room magically appeared. This greatly displeases me. If a card is not produced, I'll make my own and distribute them where their cards are. Also, I can use the card art to make fliers. Your Sister started reading my script for the new hero comic. I'm curious how it reads in script form.

Picture of the Day
Yes, it's that cold.

Checking Things

This is some cold cold right here.

We tested the road conditions Monday afternoon. Your Sister needed to deposit a check, and she was feeling the pinch of cabin fever. I was in the workshop almost all day, working on office stuff through a virtual desktop. The ice was the worst on the road connecting us to the main road; the shade prevents the sun from burning away anything. But it's been scraped and sanded, and we made it down and back with no trouble in her newish Nissan, the SUV. It was a cookie-and-beer run, and I discovered my hometown microbrewery label in our grocery store. Huzzahs erupted.

I had my physical this morning, my first in more than six years. I peed, I coughed, I exhaled during the prostate check, and I wore a terrycloth skirt for the whole thing. We ran through my blood work from last Tuesday, and the only hiccup is my good cholesterol is too low, and the doctor suggested I take Omega 3 supplements. My total cholesterol is 179, a solid number despite my diet of junk and crap and fluff. Also, she told me to keep running. Everything else was solid. She said I have good genes. 

Picture of the Day

Doesn't everyone have their physical in an operating theatre?

Double Drained

I'm on the call/mail list for the local charity group that organizes blood drives, and I made an appointment for this weekend. Almost as soon as I sat down with my waiting number, I was asked what my blood type was, and a shining light appeared in the eyes of the organizer when I told him O positive. Would you consider a double donation, he asked. I've done it before, and I know it takes much longer than the usual pint. I said it depended on the time involved and was assured it would be maybe an hour. Twenty seconds later, that was an hour and fifteen minutes. I called Your Sister to see if she could spare me for two hours, and she groggily said yes. OK, I told them, hook me up.

Unlike with previous donations, I had two "yes" answers on the pre-pint checklist. I always tell them I had a heart murmur in middle school, but I had to tell them this time that, yes, I had come in contact with someone else's blood because my wife gave birth. They blew those off, and I suspect I could tell them that not only have I, say, had sex with someone who lived in Africa, I could have dug a hole in Somalia and actually had sex with the continent of Africa, and they wouldn't care. These drives have quotas, and they eye my big-veined supply of warm blood as a walking snickerdoodle.

But the apheresis machine was wonky, and they announced I'd have to wait. I wasn't keen on that, and I said so. Also, if I'm going to be hooked up to that contraption, I'd like to know what's wrong with it. Nothing major, they said. It was a problem with the displays. It had to reboot. The drive organizer backed me up here and told them I couldn't linger. I had a limited window to bleed, and I had to get to steppin.' Within 15 minutes, the machine was back up, and I was in the chair and draining. They gave me the aluminum blanket to stay warm (trivia: this is the same type of foil used to insulate the Apollo lunar module) and Tums for my tingling lips, a symptom of calcium deprivation.

I noted that the floor trembled when someone walked by, and the nurse instead suggested I was shivering. I doubt that. Still, the saline replacement for the plasma was chilled and obvious as it hit my arm. Once they had their fill, and I ate their cookies and juice before getting Starbucks for Your Sister and me.

Rumors moved through town that the Sunday snowfall was gonna come early. We zoomed to the grocery store, and there was everybody. The rumors panned out, and we got almost five inches before Sunday. Your Sister felt some cabin fever (and probably some misanthropy) and volunteered to clear the driveway. I hovered over junior. Within a half-hour, she had caught the eye of a passing freelance snowplow, and he happily scrapped our driveway clear. That left Your Sister with less to do, and she helped the neighbors shovel their pavement. They told her they were tired of clearing their steep drive, and they were selling the house. It's a nice place, but that driveway does look like a beast to shovel.

We gave the boy his first sweet potato, and he seemed to like it. I mean, he puts everything in his mouth, so I can't see him getting indignant over foodstuffs. He returned from Your Parents' Friday, and Your Mom seemed more cheerful than she's been maybe since they came back from the last trip. Maybe Your Dad talked to her.

My Mom is feeling Dad's absence again, and I wonder if she's becoming inured to the anti-depressant. It's also the holidays and she's no longer working. I want her to get out of the house, and we suggested she hang out with Your Sister and the boy every once in a while. She's keen on coming up for a holiday meal and visit with whomever can make it.

We're asking a high-school friend of mine to do our first portraits as a trio. She lives fairly close by, and we'll feed her in addition to paying her photography rate.

I'm working from home today and will spend some downtime proofing the comic script so Your Sister can read it. I think she'll dig it.

Oh, I bought a set of markers and took another pass at the holiday cards I'm sending out. Even with the snow, they should be received before Christmas.