I like Halloween, I hate Thanksgiving

I just saw somebody blogging about how they hate Halloween. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Me, I like Halloween. Always have. Even when it was miserable. I remember dragging my tired self along miles of unlit roads in icy cold rain until my hands were numb and my nose was leaking like a faucet. The only costume that could provide any comfort was the arctic explorer or the Eskimo, and George Riley always took both of those by putting on his winter coat and ski goggles. That usually left me as a ghost or a vampire or something else that could get really really cold.

I didn't complain though. Getting cold and exhausted was the price of free candy. It was an active demonstration that the things you value most have to be earned. Like hot soup or chilli after the cold. Like all of that wonderful candy. And of course, there are the priceless stories of hardship I now get to flog my own children with whenever they feel that they have it tough.

But I hate Thanksgiving. It's a miserable excuse for a holiday. Not that I'm ungrateful. Or at least, not peculiarly ungrateful. I just don't really enjoy food and really hate the work that goes into preparing it and getting ready to share it with others. See, it's not that I'm ungrateful--just that I'm horribly selfish.

The whole idea of celebrating the plenty that the universe has bestowed on us seems like a good idea to me. It's not that part I object to. Shouldn't you do that every day anyway? But I hate the foods. Turkey? Uhg. Well, I guess I like Turkey Bacon. Dressing? Yuk. Sweet Potatoes? I hate them. Cranberry sauce? No thanks.

And the pilgrims? Screw the pilgrims.

Anyway, I like Halloween and I hate Thanksgiving. That's just me. You go ahead and like or dislike whatever you want.

Half Way to Death, My Kinda Lover and The Helm

Well,

Just turned 45 today, which I think means that I am half way to death... if I am lucky. Fortunately, I have always been incredibly lucky. What is the average lifespan up to these days for a male? Last time I read about it, the indication was that average lifespan was decreasing for the first time in decades. Maybe even in a century. Something to do with junk food. Or pesticides. Or those chemicals they use to soften plastic. Or something else. There are just too many things to worry about.

Buy why worry? That's no fun. Instead, I like to play loud music. I was playing "My Kinda Lover" by the inimitable Billy Squier for my daughters from my iPod while they were having a bath the other day. My eight-year-old seemed to be enjoying the tune quite a bit, but after the second chorus she asked me, "Is he just singing Blah blah blah-blah blah, Blah blah blah-blah blah for the chorus?" It does sound like that if you are not paying close attention and I was glad she was not paying close attention because it might have been slightly awkward to explain what he was actually singing about.

I wonder if Billy Squier is making a comeback of sorts. He recently played a music venue near my house and he had a song pretty prominently placed in that movie "Couples Retreat". I saw Billy live in concert the summer of the year I turned eighteen. He opened for Queen I think. It was a good show, and from the vast distance I sat from the stage, I couldn't even detect his excessive eyeliner. Or maybe he just has preternaturally thick eyelashes.

Eyelashes. That word got me wondering the other day. Why aren't any other hairs called lashes except the ones on your eyes? Why don't you have noselashes, or earlashes? And what about backlashes? Oh. I guess I see why on that one. But what about buttlashes? Anyway, just curious why eyes get the special treatment. Probably something to do with that whole "window to the soul" thing. Probably makes the other openings in the head feel jealous. If I were the mouth, I'd be mad. It does all the talking, so how come it doesn't get called the window to the soul? Or at least the door to the soul? Ah, just another one of those unfairnesses.

Not much news on The Helm lately. I was kicking around the idea of doing an iPhone version of it with my Editor over at Dark Horse. This was prompted by the fact that I'm currently writing a different comic for the iPhone. All top secret at the moment unfortunately, but I hope to reveal a website soon. Although, if it has the startlingly vast success of the current Helm website, I don't know how I will manage to keep up with all of my other duties in life. I may have to spend some of the staggeringly large fortune that The Helm has earned me. Yes, writing comics is an incredibly lucrative pastime.

Anyway, I need to rush home now and have my fabulous birthday dinner. I have requested Pizza Hut and spice cake. Not, you know, at the same time. It's a multi-course affair.

Blogging, DNA Haplogroups and Me

Well.

It's been nearly 200 million years since my last blog entry. Things have been busy. Without reference to the life altering things that have happened, here's what's going on today. I got my DNA analyzed by the National Geographic and I finally looked up the results today. Apparently, I am related to you all. Most of you, pretty closely as it turns out.

For those of you keeping track, I'm in the Haplogroup R1b, M343 (Subclade R1b1c, M269). There, you now have enough genetic information on me to transform me into a human/hamster hybrid or frame me for crimes I did not commit. You can't actually frame me for crimes I did commit, because then it wouldn't be framing.

Although...there's a story in there.

Anyway, I will blog again tomorrow. For now, the effort of generating this hefty effort has depleted my weakened blogging muscles. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Angels and Demons, Jennifer Aniston, the Illuminati and Chuck

Well, I saw Angels and Demons over the weekend. Third movie date I've had with my wife in the past three years. Children.

We had a long debate before going about what we should see. Fortunately, we both like the same kind of movie in general. If we're going to see something on the big screen, we like to see stuff blow up and people get 2 by 4's broken over their heads or get blasted with futuristic weaponry. Unfortunately, we had both already independently seen the new Star Trek movie and my wife had already seen Wolverine. Neither one of us was that pumped about Angels and Demons, but it seemed like a better big screen choice than Management. Also, Management has Jennifer Aniston in it and she generally doesn't make good movie choices--or, if the tabloids can be believed--boyfriend choices. So, it was Angels and Demons.

Not that horrible, actually. Pretty entertaining. Except all the made up fiddle faddle about the Illuminati. That kinda bugged me. Probably bugged the actual Illuminati also--the same way the da Vinci Code bugged the guys who wrote Holy Blood, Holy Grail. If I was Dan Brown, I might be watching my back right about now. Ticked off the Church and the Illuminati? Whose next? The space aliens? The military industrial complex? Anyway, it was a good enough popcorn movie.

I also just read that Chuck has been picked up for another season. Well, 13 episodes anyway. Now there's a show I'd pay to see on the big screen. I love Chuck. Maybe Jennifer Aniston could get on an episode and break her streak of making poor movie choices. Maybe she could even marry the guy who plays Chuck and break her bad-boyfriend-choosing streak too. Assuming that Zachary Levi is a decent guy and doesn't already have a wife.

And now, a sensitive disclaimer. Please do not interpret the above text to mean that I personally believe that any of the men that Jennifer Aniston has dated/married/had relations with in the past have been "bad boyfriends". The term "bad-boyfriend-choosing streak" in the previous paragraph only refers to the idea that said boyfriends have not been "good" for Jennifer in the pursuit of a stable, long-term relationship. This interpretations presupposes that Miss Aniston is actually looking for a stable, long-term relationship. It is also solely the product of reading tabloids and has no actual connection to reality. Oh, and also, Iron Giant, Office Space and the Leprechaun were all pretty much good.

Star Trek, A Wrinkle In Our Timeline

So, we were all going to play hookie from work today and see the new Star Trek.

We had it all planned out down to the last detail. Earlier in the week we had picked the 1:10 showing--the first DLP showing of the day--and planned to meet up at the office, get a little work done and then leave about 11:45 so we could have a leisurely lunch near the theater, stroll into the movie on time to get the best seats in the house and then kick back and let it wash over us.

So, we met at the office as planned and worked out our transportation caravan. Since the theater was a bit of a drive, everyone was taking their own car so they could head right home after the show. Being environmentally conscious, we worked through all of the calculations with Spock-like precision to ensure that there would be less net environmental damage this way than if we car-pooled to the theater, then all came back to the office to get our cars and then drove home from there. Or, maybe we didn't exactly do it in a Spock-like way, but at least in a Kirk-like way.

Anyway, we were set. And then this gardener guy showed up. He was supposed to have showed up the Friday before last, which he missed, and then again last Friday, which he also missed. And now, here he was, pulling into the parking lot at 10:00 AM on Star Trek Friday! No way!

We had instructions for dealing with him. We were supposed to wait until he was finished, write him a check for his work and then lock up the gate to the office parking lot. Only problem was that he was supposed to take at least two hours to do the lot and we only had an hour and 45 minutes left! Crap!

So, at 11:50 (already five minutes late) we went down to talk to him about writing him a check in advance of his finishing the work and maybe locking up the gate himself. But it turned out that he barely spoke any English. Apparently he was an ancient Korean form of gardener. So, we regrouped back in the office and went into planning over drive. It was noon now. The leisurely lunch was slipping away. Desperate, we decided to communicate with the gardener through sophisticated hand gestures and meaningful grunting in order to get him to estimate how much time he had left so that we could figure out how much to pay him. Then we would pantomime him locking up the gate and flinging the key back through the bars in the door so that we could retrieve it on Monday.

At 12:05 we went back down and found him already finishing up. Yeah!!! So, Sara cut him a check and we gave it to him and it turned out that the person who gave us the instructions got the guy's name wrong. And he could speak enough English to let us know. We ran back upstairs and cut him a new check. Now, it was 12:10 and lunch was totally out of the question. Any later and we would be starting to endanger our good seats. We rushed back down and... he rejected the check again! Wrong name again! So, we ran back up, changed the name, shoved a new check page in the printer and...it printed backwards. DANG! It was 12:20 now! The plan was in shambles. Desperate measures were called for. So, we raided the petty cash box, paid the gardener and then ran upstairs to get the key to lock up. And who had sneaked in through the front door while we were out back? The guy from our I.T. company. And what was he doing? Backing up the hard drives. AAAAARRRRRGGGGG!

It looked like curtains for our plan. But, being an I.T. guy, he understood that this was Star Trek we were talking about. Somehow, accessing his inner Scottie, he managed to do his twenty minutes of work in two minutes. We were out the door.

Anyway, we made it.

96 rolls and the Peril of the Internet

So, I bought 96 rolls of Bottlecaps. They arrived today via FedEx or UPS or something. Two cases of 48 rolls each. Mmmmm.

But now I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't the greatest idea. I mean, what's to stop me just eating them all today? That's 2496 Bottlecaps, at least 5 of which are likely to be the root beer flavor I love so much. Even I know that anything over two thousand would be too many Bottlecaps. It's highly likely I would drop dead on the spot from diabetes type 10 or something.

This is the Peril of the Internet. Back in the good old-fashioned old days, I would have had to drive around for weeks or months (or at least days or hours) in order to locate that many rolls of Bottle Caps. I would have had to ration them so that my pleasure would last. Now, with a few clicks of my mouse and the number from my credit card, I can possess whatever candy I desire. And the problem goes well beyond candy. I can buy nearly anything I can think of on the Internet, all without any real effort. It seems like a boon until it makes you its slave.

Oh, and I ran into my friend Clay today and told him about my Bottlecaps and he spontaneously noted that the root beer ones and the lemon lime ones are the only really good ones. Now, that's some serious validation there because everybody knows that Clay and I are virtually nothing alike. I mean, he wears glasses.

Anyway, I better get going. I have a lot of candy to eat.

Blommer, Fruit Striped Gum and the Goon

I've been eating a lot of Fruit Striped gum and reading a lot of The Goon over the past few days.

I bought The Goon #1 and #2 TPBs at the Stumptown Comic Fest and I read them that night and really like them. So then I got The Goon TPBs #3, #4, #5 and China Town (which is actually a hard back and, I understand, basically The Goon #6). And I read all of those the day after I got them. And now I'm waiting for The Goon #7 and #8 to come out. I'm digging The Goon.

And then there's the Fruit Striped gum. I love the smell of Fruit Striped gum! It smells better than virtually anything else, with the possible exception of freshly baked bread or the Blommer Chocolate Factory in Chicago. It's freaky, but I like to just hold a stick of Fruit Striped gum under my nose and huff the fake-fruit scent. That's actually better than chewing the gum--mostly because the super intense flavor of Fruit Striped gum burns bright but quick and is gone in a twinkling, while that delicious smell is there for as long as you can resist chewing the gum.

Anyway, this got me thinking that there's a connection between Fruit Striped gum and the Goon. I love them both, I consume them both way too quickly and they both have a strange, intoxicating appeal that would be difficult to explain on any kind of a rational level.

At the San Diego Comic Con last year, at which we unveiled issue #1 of the Helm, Dark Horse had a conceptual poster for a potential Goon movie. David Fincher is slated to direct, so I am likely to be there opening day, probably chewing Fruit Striped gum.