Chow For Now

Okay, I know it's really spelled 'Ciao' but I wanted I just wanted... aw fugedaboutit.

Anyway, I am on my way up to Calgary tomorrow morning, so this will be my last post until I get back in another week.

I'm hoping to have lots of nifty keen pictures (read: embarrassing. probably of me.) and if I'm lucky maybe even some cool videos.
I'm hoping to interview some of the guests while I'm at the show so we'll see what happens.
At the very least, I'll have some new artwork to show off.

So while I'm gone be sure to eat your veggies, respect your parents, get to bed early and treat each other with kindness.
Oh who am I kidding? Have fun!

I Choose You!

Here's a little Pokemon humor for you.

Safe for work, but you might want headphones so you don't have to explain what you're listening to.

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.

I'm not going to harp on things to do to improve the health of the planet.

I think by now we either already know and are making changes in our lifestyle or just don't care.

We can all make simple changes that have long-term effects.

Personally, I'm having tea this morning rather than coffee grown on a plantation that has destroyed homes for migratory songbirds and I 'brown-bagged' my lunch so I wouldn't have to drive my car and get it today.

However you plan to celebrate Earth Day, I hope it's fun and that you make it a daily routine instead of just once a year.

My New Nephew

I'd like to introduce you all to my new nephew:

He broke out of solitary confinement around 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning.

Since I don't like to enourage cyber-stalking I'll just give you his initials.... Z E N.

He's such a tiny little guy! When I was holding him, I told his mom that I have action figures at my house bigger than he is!

His sister didn't seemed to fazed by having a new brother but time will tell after she figures out he's not a temporary guest at their house.

He was due to arrive the day I leave for Calgary, but as his dad was telling me after ZEN was born.... he apparently just couldn't wait for the comic book conventions before making his debut.

(I Think this kid and I are going to have a connection)

I was glad I was able to see the family the day he was born, rather than waiting until I got back.

Congratulations Dug and Deb. He looks like a keeper.

How I Spent Saturday

Yesterday was an eventful day. In a good way.

The morning started by heading out and getting coffee downtown on our way south to take pictures of the outfits I helped pick out for Hotness's coworker.

We got there and he had everything laid out in a spare room.

His wife came in and joined us while we took each shirt and paired it up with an appropriate pair of pants (and tie if needed). She took pictures and he shuffled the clothes back to the closet as we finished with them.

Man! He has got plenty of clothes to wear without repeating himself for quite some time.

Afterwards, Hotness and I stopped for lunch at Acapulco Fresh on the way home.

With both our tummies full, we got home and she went to the barn to take care of her horse while I did a quick load of laundry, took a shower and got ready for the nights activities.

She came back shortly and took her shower while I ironed a some pants and then back out the door we went.

First to Bellevue to meet up with her boss and his wife and then we all carpooled into Seattle to have dinner at Pomodoro with them.

They have never been and we've been wanting to get together with them there for a while.

Dinner was excellent, as always, and they were impressed by how beautiful the food was presented.

They wanted to go dancing and asked Hotness & I if we'd like to join them.

Not to brag about my many OTHER skills, but dancing is just not one of them. I'm about as white and un-rhytmically coordinated as they get.

"Oh it's okay. It's Salsa dancing, and they have a one-hour lesson that you can take and then stay to dance afterwards", they said.

"Oh pleeeeeaaase?" begged Hotness.

I relented and we took off to go to the Century Ballroom on Capitol Hill.

We parked, went inside and joined the crowd that was already there.

About five-minutes into it I gave up. The footwork seemed simple but trying to watch AND execute it in a working manner was not happening.

So I sat on a stool off to the side and watched.

don't mind making a fool of myself sometimes, but I DO NOT enjoy dancing (or attempting to anyway) and making a fool out on the dance floor.

Some guys got it and some guys don't. I don't and I've learned to accept it.

A little later we headed back to their place where we sat and watched a couple of programs on TV with them and then called it a night.

It was around midnight, and while we didn't have plans for Sunday, we still needed to get home as this weather has been crazy and we didn't know if we'd make it up our hill because of the snow.

Not far from our house, one of the neighbor's garbage cans was tipped over and trash was spread out across the road.

"Oh great. One of the neighborhood dogs is loose and on a rampage. They'll love cleaning THAT up in the morning!" I said.

We pulled into our driveway and just caught a brief glimpse of a large, black, lumbering figure running in front of us and through our backyard.

A black bear was actually the culprit and we were lucky enough to see it before it disappeared into the woods.

I wanted to get pictures of the bear tracks in the snow, but Hotness was scared it would come out after us and made me come back inside.

This morning when I got up, we had fresh snow on the ground so I'm sorry I have no cool pictures of bear tracks to show you.

Speaking of snow...

Aren't we already a month into spring?

Here we are and it's snowing still.

Last weekend it was almost 80 degrees and this weekend it's barely above freezing. Crazy.

Not Cool

You know how when you're signed off of Blogger but you're on the sign in screen, it'll show recently updated blogs that you can click on and check out?
I was checking out the titles that were popping up. Some blatently ads or junk blogs, others with interesting titles, and some just out and out porn.

So my interest was piqued when I saw the name "Bill Sienkiewicz" appear up there.
Hold on. THE Bill Sienkiewicz?!? He has a blog?
Wow, I should check that out.

I clicked it and then was redirected to another page that loaded up and was actually....
just a porn blog with LOTS of pics of gay men (and a few women). Complete with a video of two (not that attractive) women gettin' it on.

Hey man.
Not cool. Not cool at all.

Oh Okay, One More...

What about Stephen King on "Man Thing" and Eric Powell on art?

Hmmm? Just a thought.
Discuss it amongst yourselves and get back to me.

Got Meme'd

There's a first time for everything (and this year seems to be filled with a bunch of them... more on that soon).
I got tagged for a meme recently and so I'm supposed to come up with something along the lines of the following theme: (heh! "theme" "meme"... weird.)

What creators who are usually associated with a certain company (or, indeed, medium) would you like to see writing someone else’s title? For example, would you want to see JMS on Hellboy? Which DC character should Bendis have a crack at? Should George Pelecanos write Batman?

Well me start out by saying that I don't have any dead-set particular favorites when it comes to writers or artists. I kind of take them for what they are at the time, and good or bad I'll read the books. Some I enjoy more than others, be it for the art or the writing, but it really depends on my mood at the time.

While I'm currently enjoying Gail Simone on 'Wonder Woman' I'd like to see Phil Jimenez on it again.
He was the writer that was on the book when I began reading it and really brought a lot of depth to the character in my opinion. Sure he's a bit wordy with the dialog, but unlike Bendis I didn't mind reading lengthy conversations between characters. They actually SAID something.

I'd like to see a limited series or one-shot of 'Hellboy' written by Bob Burden. The character lends itself to the strange on a regular basis, and I think Bob's surreal approach to comics would be highly entertaining.
Maybe even with Andy Kuhn on art duty.

Jeff Parker on "Avengers". Either title. 'Mighty' or 'New'.... or heck, even BOTH!
I have nothing personal against Bendis (I really enjoy "Ultimate Spider-Man"), but c'mon! Give other people a chance to write would ya? I first discovered Jeff via his own book "The Interman" (available in trade from your local comic book shop, by the way) and it was fantastic. Then I read "Agents of Atlas" and "Spider-man & The Fantastic Four" plus the all-ages "Avengers" comic.
This guy writes solo characters or teams and can keep the dialog of each within character.
I think he'd bring some much-needed fresh blood to these titles.

Matt Wagner on "Punisher". Yeah.
Jeez he already writes about a criminal mastermind who can't be taken down by anybody (not even the damn Batman!), so how cool would it be to have a Punisher from the other end of the spectrum? (Not to take anything away from Matt Fraction, though)

Okay, I've tried not to make him the first person on EVERY book, but I had to get to him sooner or later; Terry Moore.
I think everything he works on is gold.
I'd like to see him on "Birds of Prey" again. (He did a 3-issue stint quite a while back). He has a very unique perspective and can write strong female characters. Also, I'd like to see his take on the "The Spirit". That would be something.
Or maybe Terry's art on "The Spirit" and Jeff Parker writing?

How about Joss Whedon on "Titans" or "Young Avengers"? I'm not a Joss disciple but that ought to be a nice change of pace to see how he'd handle those books.

How about Robert Kirkman writing "Jonah Hex"?
I'd like to see him do something out of the ordinary. No zombies or superheroes this time. Just a mean old ugly gunslinger in the old west.

And finally, I'd like to see Warren Ellis take a stab (literally!) at "Green Lantern" or "Green Lantern Corps." And maybe even the "JSA".

So there.
That's my 2-cents. Let me know what YOU think.

I. Am. Canadian.

I heard the audio for this on my way into work this morning and found the video on YouTube after I got in and turned my computer on.
With my trip to Canada coming up quickly (5-1/2 days to go!), it seemed like a rather appropriate post today.

Ladies and gentlemen... I present to you, The Shat:

Battle For Breakfast

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

Why start your day all bleary-eyed and fumbling around until that first cup of coffee kicks in?

You could have some toast and a nice hard-boiled egg in this nifty egg-holder:

What could get you more fired-up in the morning than thinking that soldiers are protecting the most important meal of the day for you?

Tax Day 2008

Hope you got your taxes filled out and filed today. If not.... good luck avoiding an audit.

I did mine a few weeks ago and just got my return last Friday (Yay!).

Then today was payday and my quarterly bonus (Double yay!)

Both of them came just in time for the upcoming comic conventions. How convenient.

If all goes well, my 'economy stimulus check' will arrive right before the ECCC, so I'll be set for lots of new sketches and stuff.

I hope to add to my Comicartfans page soon afterwards, once I get everything scanned.

I'll put some of the choice pieces on here but most everything else will be on that site.

Not much to blog about lately. Aside from what I've told you about the past weekend, things have been relatively quiet.

I did manage to change my snow tires on my car and put my summer tires on (FINALLY), and on Sunday I got a few seeds planted along our walkway to the front door.

I know that doesn't sound like much of a big deal, but I've always wanted to have nice colorful flowers lining the path to the door during spring & summer. We've lived here for 6 years and I've finally gotten around to it. Well, that is if the seeds sprout and the damn deer don't eat the plants.

Being in the yard on Sunday, Hotness & I could hear the Bzzzz of hummingbirds whizzing by.

So last night on my way home I picked up a hanging pot and a couple of fuschias and also a small hummingbird feeder. I hung them from our front porch and hopefully they'll clue in and start feeding where we can see them.

I also picked up a bunch of wild bird seed and some suet cakes to start keeping the feeders at the house filled.

I really enjoy watching the birds that come to visit. We get quite a few different varieties, and I should probably take a bird census of what shows up throughout the year.

That's all for now. I'll try to come up with something more exciting next time.

Never (retry)

(So the code came back up and I'm going to try this again. Hopefully it'll stay working this time.)

NEVER let prying prying eyes have access to things they shouldn't.
And conversely, NEVER stick your nose where it doesn't belong.

More Saturday Fun

After we did the shopping, we had plans to get together with friends in the late afternoon / evening one last time before one of our tribe is due to have her second child (and would therefore be out of the loop for at least another year).

So we headed back towards their house where everone was waiting.

It was a beautiful spring evening for getting together and sitting on the porch just catching up with each other.

We had sort of a potluck dinner and mingled indoors and out on the porch as conversations moved amongst the group.

The kids had fun and ran around in the yard after eating. (Hopefully tiring themselves out so they'd get to bed early... but no such luck I'm guessing)

One of the group is celebrating his birthday later this week so we sang the birthday song and ate cake. (He's in the middle staring back at me)

It was a terrific way to end such a beautiful, warm, sunny day by spending it with great friends.

Personal Shopper ver. 2.0

It's starting to become a habit now.

I spent the earlier part of the day Saturday helping one of Hotness's co-workers put together some "business casual" outfits.

To make a longer story short, he just didn't have an eye for matching things up properly.

WTF? Are you an Easter egg? -->

So when he & the boss were to make some sales calls recently, he put together an outfit that made his boss cringe and send him back home to change.

<-- vertical stripes + diagonal stripes = NO!

I offered to go shopping with him and help him pick out some things that he could wear to the office, to a sales meeting, and just casually out for an evening.

He ended up getting 5 pairs of Dockers and 6 or 7 solid color shirts along with a few ties and a reversible belt.

Enough to mix-and-match and have a different outfit for work every day for 3 weeks.

He'll be presentable for the company. His boss'll be happy. His wife will be happy.

It's an all-around win/win situation.

After shopping, he treated for lunch (Hotness joined us) and we went to The Cheesecake Factory near the mall. I had some incredible Tex-Mex spring rolls. Just a tad spicy and served with some pico-de-gallo and an avocado sauce on the side. And a Patron el Diablo (Patron silver tequila, Cointreau, pomogranate and grapefruit juices).... Ka-pow!

After eating, I took a couple of the shirts and ties and paired them up with some pants and folded them together. I told him, "Wear these for starters and when we get a chance we'll come take pictures of what can be mixed so you'll have a visual reference to use later."

We all had a good time and he seemed very happy to have gotten some outfits that go well together.

I'm kinda digging this personal shopping thing.

I've been doing it for Hotness for a while. She hates to shop and try on clothes, so on several occasions I've just done it for her. I know her sizes and I pretty much know where things will fall into place on her so I just start picking up stuff that looks good and it usually works perfectly.

I'd say I have a 90% success rate when it comes to picking out stuff she can wear.

I'll have to get cards made up that say "Dr. Ferretnick - Retail Therapist".

But this wasn't everything we did that day. More soon!

Never

Sorry!

The video for this seems to have been taken down and I can't find another source for it.
If you're reading this from Google reader (or whatever else you may be using) there is no actual post now.

I've had to scrap it.

Especially The 'Falling Down' Part

This kid reminds me of... ME!
That is, after about 3 or 4 shots of tequila!




Have a good weekend ya'll! It's supposed to be a nice one.

The Mighty Van Halen

I loves me the Van Halen!

I didn't go see them on tour with David Lee Roth this last time around, because I'm a little pissed that they dropped Michael Anthony from the band and replaced him with Eddie's son, Wolfgang.

Not that I think Wolfie can't play, but it's not the same Van Halen, and it's not fair to Mike.

I heard they put on a heck of a show though, and Diamond Dave is still on top of his game (albeit not as acrobatic on stage).

I'm hoping to find a concert bootleg floating around from the recent tour to add to my others.

(Yup! I got quite a few concerts on CD from all eras of the band... even Gary Cherone. You can find out what's available out there on this site.)

Anyway, the reason for this rambling post is just so I could put up this picture:

Eh... not quite the young, brash dudes of my yesteryear are they?

In fact, they're actually starting to look more like the Rolling Stones.

Smell-O-Vision

If only it were possible to include a 'scratch-n-sniff' .jpg with this post.

But (thankfully for you) I can't.

About a year ago we had a foul (FOUL, I tell you!) smell that hung around the front office of my work. It appeared one day and was gone the next.

Then it happened again. And then it wafted around for a couple of days.

It seemed to happen after a building next to us had been bought and began producing food products. We never smelled it before then.

Not to name the company, but the smell was reminiscent of spoiled onions and rotting garbage.

(The food company next door makes Italian foodstuffs for the restaurant business industry)

It was logical to think that maybe something in their building was venting out towards ours, so we asked a couple of the head honchos over to breath deep and tell us what they were making that smelled so bad.

"That's not us", they said. "That smells more like raw sewage. Maybe you have a plumbing problem."

Ironically enough, the smell stopped after that and we didn't have any other problems with it.

Until this week.

It came back again.

We'd been having problems with a smoke detector in the front office so the Heating & A/C guy closed off our outside vents to see if that helped.

It did, sort of. The smoke alarm functioned properly now (it was picking up diesel fumes from construction equipment behind us) but the unholy smell had taken over the front office.

We opened the doors to vent our building and had him come back to open those vents back up.

The smell dissapated and we were able to finish the day.

But yesterday, after the noon hour the smell starting coming back and became stronger as the day continued. It seemed to be coming from our electrical closet, so I opened the door and.....

WHEW! Yeah, it was coming from there alright!

Same thing happened today. The morning was fine but after 12:00 it starts to stink.

You can't smell it outside the building, which is a good indicator that the food plant next to us really isn't the culprit.

However our upstairs sewer pipes run along the wall of where the smell is emanating from.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence of a leak anywhere, so nobody knows where this smell is originating. And to make matters worse, the one person who needs to get it fixed (if indeed it can be) is the boss... who can't smell it.

Everybody else can, but not him. So when we try to describe it, we all smell it differently and since none of our descriptions are the same, he doesn't know what the problem is.

I'll tell you, it's pretty sad when the restroom smells better than the front office.

That's how bad it gets.

I Prefer My Wild Turkey In A Bottle

Actually, truth be told... I'm a tequila kind of guy.
Not a big fan of whisky or bourbon.
But if I had to make a choice, I'd rather drink Wild Turkey from the bottle than have them attack me while driving a U.S. Postal truck.

I know turkeys have a bad rap for not being the brightest crayons in the box, but c'mon...
The trucks are like 10 times their size! (if not larger!)
They've gotta have massive cojones to want to tackle something that large.

RIAA Deathknell?

Kind of yesterday's news and I'm not sure if it's true, but I know I sure wouldn't be saddened by it.

The RIAA will die in 2008

I'm not advocating piracy (*cough-cough*), but shooting your customers to hopefully get the thieves is bad business and only breeds more and thieves.
Good riddance to them I say.

See also:
The RIAA homepage
Boycott the RIAA

A Midsummer's Night Dream

Saturday night Hotness and I attended the ballet to see A Midsummer's Night Dream.
We were both really looking forward to going, as this was the first ballet we attened when we first started getting season tickets, lo these many years ago, and it holds a special place in our hearts as being one of the more fun ones to see.

Unfortunately, we only stayed for the first act (of two).
It may have been a lack of sleep from the previous night on my part, I'm not quite sure.
But once the curtains rose and everything started, we just didn't feel inspired to stay and see the whole thing. It didn't seem as 'magical' to either of us this time around.
All the good parts happen during the first act, so by skipping out during intermission we weren't missing anything.

Thus being earlier in the evening than normal for a ballet night, we skipped our usual post-show meal at Pomodoro on Eastlaske and headed up north to the Comic Stop to drop in, make an appearance and show off our fancy clothes.

It was poker night at Ye Old Comic Stop, so the regular gang was there and welcomed us into the fold.
Palindrome had brought in some home-made cookies that he baked, so Hotness got her fill and was cookied-up for the night.
I browsed the racks (COMIC racks, you perverts!) while some people played poker, and others stood around talking about the upcoming ECCC and all things Jamie Bamber-related.

It was getting late by now and we were getting a bit tired so we left and headed home. This time WITHOUT the added adventure of getting stuck in the snow and having to walk home, thankfully!

--------------------
In other news:
With my recent trips coming up to Calgary Expo and the ECCC happening real soon, I've been trying to avoid everybody that's showing signs of being sick like.... well, like the plague.

I've started a regimen of vitamin C, echinacea w/ zinc, ginsing, and LOTS of tea involvolving detoxifying herbs and immunity boosters.
I'm no Slim Goodbody or anything, but I'll be SUPER-pissed if I wake up the morning before the show and I've gotten the flu.

I Can Be Such A Dork

The other day I ran across a pen that Hotness picked up on one of her business trips.



So I see this pen in our "cup o' pens" that we have and I'm thinking it was a memo-recording pen. I thought that the holes were for a tiny speaker and microphone. You know, you think of something cool but you don't have a notepad handy so you speak into the pen and write it down later.

Except the batteries seemed to have died so it wasn't working.

No problem, I'll just take the batteries out and switch them around. Sometimes you can get a little extra juice out of them that way and I can play with it for a minute or two.

Unscrewed it, swapped the battereis around and put it all together again.

Then I pushed the button and noticed that there was a light coming out of the end of it.
"Oh, so it's not a pen with a voice recorder, it's actually got a tiny flashlight. Cool."

I turn the light-end towards me and puch the button. A white LED lights up and flashes in my eyes.

Then I push the outher button and a red one lights up.
"Hmmm, the red one isn't as bright.... OH! CRAP! It's a laser pointer!", as I'm pointing it directly into my eyes and looking at it.

80's J-Pop

Here's some 80's fluff for you straight outta Japan:




Um... words escape me.

P.S.: The band is Denki Groove and the song is called "Shonen Young"

Insomnia

Dude, it's 4:00 in the morning! What the heck?!?
I woke up at 2:50a.m. and was wide awake. Went and got a glass of water and then.... couldn't get back to sleep. Which sucks.
So I'm on here complaining about it 'cause I have nothing better to do.

I have a late evening planned for tonight, and I'm going to be falling asleep because I didn't get enough the night before. This'll be fun.

As for burgers, Guitar Hero and Long Island Iced Teas? Check, check and check my friends.
It was a perfect triple-play.
I actually went to the grocery store and picked-up burger fixins' with the intention of making them at home and thus mixing up my own drinks for the evening before passing out with a guitar controller under my face (and the cat curled up on my back).

It turned out that Hotness decided she wanted to go out for dinner, so we went to a place in town and I got my burger and drink there. (FYI: the drink was made by a heavy-handed bartender and thus was muy bueno. I could only drink one, as I fear another would've put me in the hospital!)
But before we left to go to dinner, I got in a short set of Guitar Hero.
It's all about the "Ace of Spades" and "Paranoid" baby!

Maintenance & The Weekend

Updated my link list to your right over there.

I added a bunch of bloggers who I read on a fairly frequent basis, plus I know most of them personally. (Hi kids!)

Give 'em a read if you're new here.

---------------------------------------------

And it's Friday. The start of the weekend finally.

Work has been pretty mellow, but the boss has been away on vacation all week.

Coincidence? Hmmm... most likely.

Tonight it's burgers for dinner, with a little Guitar Hero

and some Long Island Iced Teas.

Party tonight, for tomorrow we attend the ballet!

(review forthcoming)

Commercial

So I was just reading that Wil Wheaton will be a guest at this year's ECCC.
I went over to his blog to read up on what's new 'cause he's apparently a geek and loves to blog.
Hmmm... something seems familiar here.

It sounds like he's going to be a fun guest and I'm looking forward to seeing him at the show, which is just a month and a half away.

Anyway, he had a post on there in which he reminisced about some TV programs that were from my misspent 80's youth. Stuff that seemed really awesome at the time but in retrospect had a very good reason for me to forget it. (Although the "Time for Timer" one still sticks in my head and occasionaly I'll sing it in the kitchen while Hotness looks funny at me.)
It reminded me of a Colgate toothpaste commercial that used to also play at that time back when I was a young, impressionable lad.


I had SUCH a crush on the girl in the black & white dress at that time.
I don't know why. She's not in it for very much of the time.

Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month!
I thought with today being the first day of the month, it was a good time to let everybody now about it.
(You know, instead of waiting until like the middle of the month or something like I usually do)

I also wanted to throw out a little reminder to go check out vregopoetry.com.
She's updated her site with new poems again, so if you haven't been in a while now's a good time.

Not to embarrass her, but she's been having a bit of writer's block lately. Which is a good thing actually. She recently found a special someone that is sharing her life and she's been so happy she hasn't been able to sit and write.
Congratulations, V!
Go drop her a line and wish her well, would ya?
--------------
Speaking of poetry, check out this song by (former?) rapper, Queen Latifah.
It's called "Poetry Man".

TRON

Anybody remember the computer-animation movie TRON?
That was a pretty spectacular effects movie for it's time.
One of the best scenes was the Lightcycle race.



Here a French filmaker re-created it using cardboard vehicles and construction paper.
Dang cool, if you ask me.

Tron
Uploaded by freres-hueon

By way of the Presurfer.