Just This Side of Identical

Because I suspected the girl assigned to take care of Your Parents' cat wasn't, I went by the house again today to snoop. The litter boxes look like they haven't been cleaned since they left. I scooped them out and put the bag in the outdoor trash can. The top of the cat food bucket was off, suggesting she forgot to close it, which suggests she's at least feeding the cat. It didn't look in any way like the cat had gotten to it.

On the way back to the office, I stopped in Starbucks. There I spied the flyer for the local roller derby season opener and finally got a good look at the altered logo.

Recap: I sent them this logo.

This was the version the derby representative and I agreed to back in August. As of the teams' new year's party flyer, this was the b-team logo. But, last month, when the poster for the season-opening bout was released, the logo turned into this.

I have yet to hear from the roller I talked to, and I'm giving her another week or so to respond to my email. Then I contact the team through other means. Again, my concern is whether my logo is still considered the winner of last year's contest and whether I get the promised prizes. That design is still mostly mine. I would have made those changes had they asked, and, honestly, I would have made it look better. The braids are lost in the background. 

+  +  +

According to the newspaper, my letter runs today.

Picture of the Day
Stethoscope-style headphones.

Slow Progressions

Your Sister took the boy to the doctor yesterday to see about his runny nose. He's had a filthy nose for about two weeks now, and she was worried an infection might spread to his ears. He has been tugging on them for a few days. The doctors found no sign of a virus. He responded well to Orajel last night when he awoke, suggesting he's teething after all. He's also starting to pull upright in his crib, and we'll need to lower the mattress height so he can't climb out. He loves pulling himself to his feet now. It's all he wants to do when you approach him.

When will we remember that we installed cabinet locks so we won't tumble backward when we try to fetch a cutting board? 

+  +  +

Very late in my workday yesterday, I heard from the newspaper about my letter. They said I had to whittle it down to 350 words before they'd run it. I appreciate the chance to edit it myself; I've seen enough of their handiwork to trust them with cropping my submission. I had to make a new ending, and went through about five snarky conclusions before finding one that seemed polite but confident. They don't run their letter criteria often. Had I known about the word limit, this letter might have been printed already. The most recent edition had a secondary response letter, and it was the usual "cold dead hand" rhetoric about gun ownership.

I'm not arguing the right to have a handgun for safety. I'm arguing that the ability to fire 30 bullets without reloading isn't a defensive strategy. When I took martial arts classes, both instructors advised that you do just enough to end the threat and leave the situation. That's the kind of defense a six- or nine-bullet capacity provides. Anything more, and you're escalating the situation and creating an arms race with everyone else packing a gun.

Again, I hope the letter shows that one can advocate gun-control laws while honoring the right to protect one's self and property.

+  +  +

Picture of the Day
We're watching the Jeopardy! episodes pitting the two top all-time winners against IBM's Watson computer. It's astounding to behold this black, vertical screen standing behind the podium. 

He's good at treating each clue as a search listing, although he's not infallible. In a question regarding U.S. airports, he answered Toronto. He's competed strong, but I wonder if he has an increased advantage with a quicker clicker response. The human contestants, as always, run the risk of locking themselves out if they buzz in too early. Watson won't do that. 

Still, a computer is competing on Jeopardy! The mind boggles. 

Lock Down

Because the boy is starting to scramble, we're locking down the kitchen. I'm picking up a new baby gate today to block the door to the library. We should get one for the laundry and cat room, but the cat can't jump like he used to. The sidekick managed to crawl all the way into there while Your Sister as distracted, and she learned of it when he started spitting out cat litter.

The previous residents of the house used baby locks on their cabinets and removed the pegs when they sold us the house. We decided this weekend to put new pegs up but use the catches that remained. The cabinet doors still have the screw holes, and it seemed like an easy enough chore. But the new pegs are set wider and can't use both old holes. Also, attaching baby locks to a lazy susan is a torture out of Greek myth. We both got so frustrated last night -- me with the locks, she with the sidekick-- that we traded. She finished off the lazy susan in no time, and I had the boy asleep within 15 minutes. I still need to get her bathroom cabinet locked. My cabinet may not need it. The only thing inside is toilet paper. How much damage can he do? [gets Dead Zone-like premonition; resolves to prevent paper holocaust]

+  +  +

I was contacted by the local paper to confirm they got my letter. They did not however ask me to confirm I wrote the letter. That was standard at the papers I worked for, even (or especially) the university one. I'm also still waiting to hear about that derby logo.

Picture of the Day
I think Russell Brand wants to be the Freddy Mercury of comedy.

Tripping Lights Fantastically

Although the sidekick doesn't show any new teeth, he sure acts like he's expecting them. He pulls his ears. He's cranky. But there's no action on those gums. We suspect he's experiencing a mental growth spurt. He's suddenly pulling up to a standing position (albeit wobbly), bridging while on his back, and climbing over our shoulders when we hold him. He's found traction all over the place. I started installing cabinet locks in the kitchen.

We hired a babysitter for Saturday night and accompanied Kathy and Travis to her dancing competition. The local arts council held a charity version of Dancing With the Stars, and Kathy used a mash-up I gave her years back to dance with an area instructor. There were six couples competing, and the winners were determined by how much money was donated in their name. Bookending the dance competition were two open-floor dances where people were encouraged to try their had at certain dances.

Now I haven't had any dance instruction since high school. My girlfriend at the time attended dance classes with her parents, and she taught me the steps they learned. That was 20 years ago. When I asked Your Sister to dance, she demurred, and I assured her we would only "prom dance," tha aimless, slow movement during ballads. During the pre-event dinner, Your Sister told them about being a young left-handed batter; she was taught to hit right-handed and failed miserably until an umpire stopped a game to move her to other side of the plate. She immediately made contact. Hours later, as I talked her into a slow dance, she stumbled over my feet until we realized she was dancing right-footed. We changed stances, and she had no problem.

When the DJ played 'The Twist," Kathy couldn't get a dance partner, and I volunteered. It's the easiest dance to do. I almost joined in on a line dance once I watched and figured out the pattern. It was such an infectious atmosphere that I'm considering joining in next year. In fact, one of my theatre cohorts participating in this event asked me to sign up, and I told her I'd consider it. Some other people I shared the stage with said hi, and at least one didn't know we had a baby.

This event was done right, and it looked sold out. The only hiccup was with the last dance couple; they didn't test their CD before the show, and the DJ's equipment couldn't play it. They had to use a song he had that fit their dance style.

Kathy won. She got a heavy trophy and the chance to do her routine again. I hope she defends the title next year. If she does, I won't compete against her.

We had forgotten how convenient it is to use a sitter, and I think we should have a night out about twice a month. There are some films she's very eager to see.

+  +  +

I sent in the letter to the editor. I hope it doesn't lay an egg.

+  +  +

I started page 14 of the comic today. That keeps me on pace to work a page with the same number as the date. I won't be able to maintain that -- I did four pages this weekend to catch up -- but I aim to finish these 24 pages before the 28th. I'm thrilled with how well most of this is coming out. I'll have to touch-up some faces and feet, but this is half a comic drawn in two weeks. That's not bad for a household with a baby.

Picture of the Day

My card for the next comic show.

A Different Look

Sometime between the New Year's party for the local rollerderby teams and this week, my logo was changed. The New Year's poster had the version I created based on their notes, and the new logo seems like a bad copy. I can only spy a small version on a poster linked on FB, but I can tell they removed the skull reflection, redrew the face, and added pigtails, everything but the basic shape and fonts. It's their logo. They can do what they like with it. But I wonder why they didn't contact me to make the changes.

Actually I do have a theory: Mine looked a bit too polished. The a-team logo is scratchy, almost sketchy. The logo I submitted for the b-team was made in Illustrator. I bet they they dirtied it up so it wouldn't outshine the a-team's. And that's what I'll tell myself whenever I look at it on billboards and t-shirts and weep silently.

I contacted my team liaison -- the roller who managed the logo contest -- and asked if this changes the outcome of the contest. If they're not technically using the logo I made, does this negate the contest results, and do I still get the promised swag? I wish I'd been kept in the loop on this, even just a heads up. I'm more confused than bristled.

+  +  + 

I showed a draft of the letter to the editor I wrote in response to a gun-control rant from last week. She liked it and said I should send it in. That column did inspire another letter that ran this week. It wasn't bad. A tad snarky, and that's the attitude I tried to avoid in my letter.

+  +  +

We suspect the man-cub is teething again. He had a horrible night yesterday and was only calmed after two applications of Orajel. He also may be attempting hand signals. Your Sister says he associates one chair with feeding and starts squirming toward it when he's hungry.

Moving Picture of the Day
The next film in the X-Men franchise comes out this summer, and the trailer was released yesterday. It looks good, and what once seemed like a doomed, desperate effort to milk the cash cow now has hope of being an entertaining flick. The casting seems nice, and the production design stays true to the first three films (the Wolverine spinoff had its own style and suffered from it).

Art Progression

I put down my 2H pencil on page seven this morning, and finished my first extended fight scene for the comic. Page six gets the fighters in the ring. When I scripted it, I stayed vague about the details and intended to fill in the choreography and identities of the fighters as I went along. I figured out within the week who the robots would be and how they would be distinct in fight styles and that gave me the structure to set up a bout between two of them.

There's a UFC fighter named Anderson Silva who is the most successful fighter they've ever had. He's 13-0 since joining the UFC, and 11 of those wins are title defenses. He's tall, he's wiry, he's nicknamed "Spider." I wanted to copy that and came up with Wire Mother, the most feared fighter in the league. Here's her in-ring debut.

Here's the first sketch drawn tiny, followed by the larger sketch and the current pencils on the art board.

It's so, so much easier to draw on a larger scale. My wrist movements are larger, and the art flows easier from the pencils. Also, I may draw out my sound effects instead of typing them on the page scans.

+  +  +

You might remember my hemming and hawing over a recent letter to the editor and my possible response to it. Oddly, there have been no response letters printed in the paper. Either everyone shrugged it off or the paper is saving the letters for a blowout reaction page. If it's the former, I'm glad I didn't jot off the only response letter; that would have been awkward the next time we ran into the original writer at the grocery store. If it's the latter, I would have been lost amid the probable wail of indignation.

+  +  + 

The sidekick has learned to bounce on his tush. This might replace the constant kicking. He still hasn't successfully assembled all the components of crawling. Not in the right order, not in the right amount.

Super Geek Bowl

The Super Bowl included two short commercials for Marvel films, Thor and Captain America, both coming out this year.

Both films are potential franchise sparks, and they lead into next summer's Avengers movie with Iron Man and Hulk.

I never thought we'd see a big-budget, live-action film of either hero. Although, we did get a very bad live-action Cap film in the '70s, not long after Spider-Man's TV show.

And there was a weak 1990 film that at least tried to keep the costume faithful to the comics.

  

The second Iron Man movie included Cap's shield and Thor's hammer. Marvel has planned this franchise scheme for a while.


The deputy picked up another cold and was a miserable, wet baby all weekend. It seems to be passing quickly. I moved my comic drawings to the dinner table to keep one eye on him while I sketched and erased and repeated that, um, repeatedly.  I started page six today, and that's a nice pace to maintain. 

We watched the game last night between sidekick feedings and cleanings. Your Sister picked both teams back in September, and I don't think I'll ever hear the end of that.

The First Few

The drawing schedule has worked pretty well, so far. Instead of having to resort to a looser style, I've been able to refine my artwork somewhat . It certainly helps to be drawing bigger; I drew the first hero minicomic at a smaller proportion, and it got sloppy at times. Also, having detailed panels already thumbnailed means I only have to recreate the artwork at a larger size. All the questions about camera placement are already answered.

Here are the pencils for the first two pages.  They scanned lightly, and I beefed up the contrast so you can see them. That's where the brown comes from.

You can see the diagonal grid marks to represent the fence surrounding their ring. This doesn't have the polish I'd prefer, but it feels clear to me, and that's paramount.

The cityscape at the top of this page came out nice, but the clouds in the lower two panels have to go. I'm going to draw and scan the championship belt plate and paste it into the final scanned art later on. That's what the "stat" note means. I'll probably also drop the blinds on the left in the second panel. I can't get the angles right. 

 

I started the third page today. These above were the two most difficult pages as they were first and involved more perspective work than any other pages that will follow. I should be able to finish penciling by mid-March and then move on to inking. I think I'm on a good run here.

+  +  +

My Mom visited the wife and boy while I was at work. They visited a local family-play center, and the story goes that my son was hypnotized by a toy firetruck, the first he's ever seen, and crawled across about half the length of our house to get it.

Reacting With Hesitance

The boy inches closer to crawling. He grasps toe-and-knee motion, but he has yet to keep his arms locked. And when he does arch up with straight arms, he doesn't bring up the knees. But instead of rolling, he's now dipping a shoulder and lurching forward, plowing into the floor. Every "step" is a crash landing. He had his last round of flu shots Monday, and he faces more vaccinations, to my surprise. I thought he was done.

I finally learned to plan for quick meals when it's my turn to watch the boy and put him down when Your Sister is at yoga. I'll make stir fry tonight, and it should take maybe 20 minutes total. Your Sister made dinner last night, and I chomped down on a clove, filling my head with a puffy cloud of fragrance and rage. I had to eat more than my usual number of cookies to buy the flavor. 

+  +  +

The local paper sometimes runs long letters to the editor under the classification of "guest columns." The latest issue contains a column written by the husband of a teacher who works closely with Your Sister. He's on the local police force, and he's run for local office at least once. He wrote about gun-control laws and ranted against "liberals' who want to constrain civil liberties. It's an explosion of faulty logic, probably cobbled from comments made by talk-show hosts. For instance, he used a catchphrase I've seen a lot lately: "if guns cause murder, I can blame misspellings on my pencil."

I was tempted -- very tempted -- to rebut in a letter, but I hesitate because of the wives. I don't think this guy can respond well to negative feedback or critical analysis of his comments. In fact, I suspect he's hoping for opposing letters to give him both a fresh target for anger and an tacit invitation to fire back in his own response letters. I don't see him handling criticism on his stance very well, and that would inevitably bleed into the friendship between Your Sister and his wife. Your Sister wants me to write anyway, and I said I would depending on the conversation created by the subsequent letters. We both dread their quality -- half-cocked, hysteric, and snarky shotgun blasts of bad analogies and heated rhetoric. It's gonna get ugly. I'm sure the letters page editor wet himself with joy when the column was submitted; it's gonna lead to months of reaction letters and removes the worry of filling white space.

I'm also concerned about how the author was identified. Instead of simply providing his name and town, as is normal, he gave a small bio including his job. His comments then stem from a public figure and officer of the law, not a private citizen. Some of his comments become troubling when said with badge in hand. The implications of an officer speaking out against the law while he's presenting himself as an officer bother me as much as the faulty logic.Will he selectively enforce the law? Your Sister made the good point that a political candidate complaining about the legislative process sounds more like an anarchist than the patriot he wants to present. I think what churns my innards is his implication that the true victims of Tucson are gun rights.

We talked about the letter and its weaknesses and the prudent way to respond for hours. I'd post a link to it on the paper's site (and use the link to sketch out my own response), but it's been down all day.

Speaking of sketching, I put pencil to artboard for the first page of the comic, and it went well. Drawing bigger is a relief after dozens of small sketches. I almost finished the page after a shift in the early morn and while Your Sister prepared for bed. I almost, almost drew a whole page in one day. That's encouraging. And this was a complicated page. A number of other pages might fly by.

Picture of the Day
Maybe they need copy editors for maps. Did no one notice that long, Nile-looking object to the left of Israel?

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
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

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.