Downtown Brown

I am still of the belief that the internet is fake. That most the “people” you deal with on a daily basis via the net are bots and a few lines of programming smeared over toast. I’d have to guess that there are probably only 79 real people on the internet. Six of those people are responsible for 6,456,332 MySpace pages each.

In this fake world, I found myself making a bet with Carpanza. Carpanza’s some guy out of Minneapolis that likes to drink and seems like he’s got his shit together. We are in a Fantasy Football league and we "talk" crap, via the internet, about how crappy the other guy’s crappy players are. We also found ourselves talking smack about Ohio State and the Iowa Hawkeyes. While this talk of the smack was commencing, I made a bet with him that Ohio State would beat the Hawkeyes. He disagreed and agreed to the bet. The wager was for the winner’s choice of a six pack of beer from beeronthewall.com.

Ohio State won.

I chose a six pack of Lost Coast’s Downtown Brown. This was one of Miss Sally favorite beers back when our relationship was young. She had drank it in California and we couldn’t find a distributor in Ohio. It seems the only way to get it is by winning a bet.

So here’s where it got interesting for me. Would Carpanza, an imaginary internet character, actually buy a six pack of beer and have it shipped to some stranger in Ohio who was also probably imaginary?

Today we received a very well packaged, 6-pack of Downtown Brown. The bottles were lovingly swaddled in cardboard and they even folded up the decorative, 6-pack carrier and included it in the box. It was beautiful.


As I type, they are chilling in the refrigerator, waiting for me to savor a Buckeye win, the warm memories of young love and my new belief that perhaps there is a shred of humanity out there in the electronic aether.

The enclosed card read, “I hope this beer arrives skunky, and gives you explosive diarrhea.”

Thanks Carpanza.

Moms

With Miss Sally returning to work, we needed some help taking care of Baby Ann during the day. We were only going to need help for about three weeks until a spot opened up in the infant room at Miss Sally's preschool. Because Baby Ann decided to come out four weeks early, we now need seven weeks of help from my mother and Sally's mom.

I cannot tell you how grateful we are. I cannot tell you how much I forgot to realize that they would be spending the entire work week here. We are ending day two and my mom showed up a little bit ago to take the Wednesday/Thursday shift.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Don't ask, no Wonkas!

I did some work at the Columbus Zoo a few years ago. One of the components was a nocturnal building in the Australia area that the exhibits division at the zoo wanted turned into a themed bar/restaurant/travel office/educational center/insect diorama/casino. Another case of if simplicity is good, then a bunch of simple concepts thrown together should be GREAT!

One unique aspect was the signage in the building. They wanted themed/aged humorous signs. As it turns out, humorous themed signs are my specialty.

My favorite:


When we had the signs made, I had a second made for myself. I took it with me when I left the Studio. It’s hanging up at work. A small window that looks out at a more creative time.

The Willie Wonka and the Chocolate aficionados will notice that there is a slight issue with the sign. Any guesses?

If you get a chance to check out the Nocturnal Building (Or Bob and Evelyn's Roadhouse as it lovingly called)look for the huge relief map of Australia on the wall. That is constructed out of blood, sweat, tears and four, one gallon cans of Bondo. Look for the area on the map marked "Mystery Spot" and put your car keys near it.

Rejection is good

My friend Meshell is a very talented and creative illustrator. We got together at B-Hampton’s for a drink a few months ago and she had her portfolio on hand from an earlier meeting. Meshell and I had discussed children’s books in the past and I thought she and I should team up to create something. But like most my ideas, they are simply words with no substance behind them. That night though, Meshell showed me one of her illustrations called “The Power of Soup.”


I immediately thought of an idea for a story and went home and wrote it.

I then submitted it to a publishing company.

And then I waited.

I knew that my story wouldn’t get published. It was my first submission. It was pretty rough. I found out later that my main character’s name was not only a Teletubbie, but also a slang word for kinky sex. (Lala. I choose it because it was Miss Sally’s nickname for her sister. Luckily I had never seen the Teletubbies and only found out what Lala meant when I saw it on a 17 year-old’s T-shirt.)

What I was really looking for was acknowledgement that someone opened my letter and glanced at my five pages of dreck and responded with a form letter suggesting I burn my keyboard and take up roofing again.

And I waited some more.

Most submissions take about 10 – 15 weeks to get processed. As of yesterday, it had been almost 30 weeks and I kept telling myself that I had forgotten about it.

Yesterday, I got a letter from Tricycle Press, the children’s book division of Ten Speed Press. A form letter. A rejection letter.


And I feel acknowledged.

I then went back to re-read my story and oh boy… it could use a bit of editing. I’ll change Lala’s name (though she will always be Lala to me) and beef up a bit of the story. Perhaps I will change the part where Lala receives second degree burns from hugging a pot of steaming, hot soup.

Thanks!

This message is to the girl who was at Skully's last night, dancing around in your bra. You danced for a bit, but were so drunk, you fell flat on your face and had to be carried off.

Thanks. That was hot.

Plaid pants

I have a friend that is South Korean. Towards the beginning of our relationship, I felt we were almost friends enough for me to ask a really awkward question. I asked, “How do you tell the difference between Korean, Japanese and Chinese people?”

He thought only for a moment and said:

Koreans are pretty good dressers and they are clean.
Japanese dress very well and are very clean.
Chinese people are kind of dirty and they wear clothes that don’t match.

It's comforting to know that there are people as shallow as me all over the globe.

A few days ago, I saw a man wearing green plaid pants and a striped sweater and brown shoes with a black belt. He looked Caucasian, but I guess he was Chinese.

I’m not getting a flu shot

I’m not. I never have been immunized and I have never had the flu.

Now, I’m not one of the idiots that think that the flu shot has a chance of giving you the flu. It can’t. It’s impossible. (Unless the dude giving you the shot has the flu and sneezes in your mouth.) (Wow. That was really gross.) The shot has dead flu virus in it and you just can’t get it from that source.

There is a nasal mist vaccine that has mostly dead flu virus in it that has an infinitesimally small chance of giving you the flu. Of course, if you go by Princess Bride logic, mostly dead is slightly alive. But the chances are still slim. As slim as three men versus sixty. Get the mist and you also might want to purchase a wheel barrow and a Holocaust Cloak.

I’m also not worried because I am not old. I am not young. I don’t have asthma. I don’t have diabetes. I’m not pregnant (yet.)

But then I realized that I am what they classify as a “caregiver.” I’ve got one kid that falls in the young category and one that is in the six months and younger category. If I get the flu from that old, asthma ridden, pregnant diabetic woman at work, I could bring it home to the kids. And that would suck.

So, I’ll get the stinking flu shot. Or the mist.

And if I get the flu this year, I am going to be really pissed. And I will probably blame the vaccine. Or the guy that sneezed in my mouth.

I’m not scarred

Like many of you, I went through the fourth grade. That was when I had my traumatic childhood experience. Everyone has the traumatic childhood experience. If you don’t remember yours, it’s because it was REALLY traumatic and you should seek counseling. Mine wasn’t that traumatic, but it’s really my only one, so I have to pin the brown and black ribbon on it.

Ms. Rice was a fourth grade teacher at Tallmadge Elementary School. She was not my homeroom teacher, so I only saw her for one period a day. I think it was for science. Now I remember it was science, because she gave me a C for my report on the planets that was copied directly out of the encyclopedia. I hate to think that my parents paid thousands of dollars for a set of books that only got me a C.

One day in science class, Ms. Rice asked everyone to be quiet. Everyone got quite. Which made it a lot easier for Ms. Rice to hear me ask the kid next to me for their scissors. She had just about enough. Ms. Rice told me to come to the front of the room. She instructed the other students, “Get out a piece of paper and write something you hate about Doug.”

They did.

“Now stand up and form a line in front of Doug and read what you wrote.”

Doug stinks.
Doug is ugly.
Doug is stupid.
Doug talks in class. (You got me there.)
Doug is smelly.
Doug…

I don’t remember a lot of what they wrote. I definitely remember the Doug stinks. At first I tried to laugh it off. And then I cried. Come on, I was in the 4th grade.

The last person read their paper. I was sent back to my seat and we finished what ever we were doing. Everyone was told to throw their papers away. I went home and didn’t say a word.

Andy Friesner was a friend of mine at the time and he felt bad about it. Bad enough that he took several notes out of the trash and took them home to his parents. His parents called mine. Mine questioned me and then called the school. There was a too do.

I would have to call my mom to remind me of what happened after that. I’m sure she’d love to talk about it and get all fired up again. I seem to recall that the next day all the kids wrote nice things about me and I was to take the nice pieces of paper home and show them to my parents. Jamie Barnes (upon a proofread, I’m realizing that this might be a good point to preface that Jamie is a girl) asked me to be her square dance partner in Gym class. That might have all been worth it.


I’m not scarred. Thinking about it makes me sad. But mainly because I’m now remembering these people from my past. I haven’t talked to Andy in years. He is a great guy. And that my long lost love Jamie Barnes hasn’t thought about me in years.

Ms. Rice? My understanding is that she is now an educational administrator somewhere. I searched the internet for “Ms. Rice is a stinking filthy whore” but did not get any search results. I’m not scarred.

Saints vs Atlanta

I'm not a cartoonist, but I pretend to be one on teh intraweb. I thought of this one my drive into work this morning. (Click to enlarge.)



I started to redraw it, but I like the spontaneity of this one. (And I was too lazy.)

I'm thinking though that if I did re-draw it, I'd combine the 2nd and 3rd frame and then in the new forth frame have everyone come running back into the dome looking for shelter and blaming the Bush administration.

(Man, the #12 guy looks like a terrorist.) What kind of f'd up helmet is that?

God made fish. The devil made the deep fryer.

God made fish. The devil made the deep fryer. Let’s go eat in Purgatory!

There is a restaurant in Columbus called Old Bag o’ Nails. They have really, really great fish and chips. The slaw stinks. The tartar sauce is usually warm. But the fish and chips are perfect. The almost better part is that they give you a huge portion. Some have described the portions as big as a baby’s arm or like a big fish, but bigger!

I have never heard anyone say that the fish portion was as large as a #1 foam finger.

Please compare and contrast the following:





The first photo is that of an Ohio State University #1 foam finger.

The second is a camera phone photo of some fish and chips I ordered last week.

I rest my case. The Old Bag o’ Nail fish and chips portion is as big as a #1 foam finger.