Stuff

Blog 013107


First night in custom was somewhat boring. They had the people they laid off still working! That was a bit awkward. I guess one guy, who’s 26, got all pouty and left or something in a huff. I missed it though.

We were like the new kids in school. All the people in the area were staring at us. We ended up packing golf balls into packaging by hand. They were doing inventory which meant that after a couple of hours everybody was standing around doing nothing. I think some people went home.

It got fairly boring towards the end of the night. I was yawning a lot, but out of boredom. Our swipe cards didn’t work so we couldn’t punch in. I’ll be checking next week’s paycheck very carefully.

Been having some weird dreams with the new sleep schedule. Yesterday I had a dream I was playing on a football team. It was some sort of bush league I think. The score was tied, maybe even scoreless with only a minute or two left in the game. We were getting ready to kick off and I prayed to God that I or the team could cause and recover the fumble. We kicked off and I was chasing down the ball. I was quite far away from the play when the guy actually fumbled. The ball rolled across the field pass a couple of guys. I rolled near me and I was able to corral it with one arm while I was on the ground. Nobody touched me and I got up and ran it down to their 5 or even 3 yard line before I was tackled. Since I played defense I was on the sidelines. I hoped our offense would score but wasn’t sure because the team sucked. Something happened and I missed that we had to end up eventually go for a field goal that we made to win the game. At some point I was hoping we were on national TV because I had made the big play. I also had hoped we were on the only game on so every one would see it.

I had another dream tonight. I slept from around 11am to 7:30pm. I had a dream that a number of us were on a planet with the Star Trek villain Gary something or other. He’s the guy from the original series that had god like powers that Kirk eventually kills. Part of this planet was my parents’ backyard where we have the dam and pool of water. We were trying to kill Gary but we never succeeded.

I must have woken up because the next dream I remember I was in some sort of school. It was co-ed and I remember having to try and find some books for some classmates. I had to take a leak at some point and a shower. Woke up before I did either.

My heating bill came in. Despite it being warm overall and me keeping the temp at 67 degrees for the furnance, my bill went up about $100 over the previous month. I guess the gas companies will get their money one way or the other. Since I had budgeted only about $160 for the bill, I know have to come up with another $85 or so. What a pisser. My electric bill was about $20 more than I budgeted too. So that means that much less money for me.

I also got a paper for my doing business as. It’s not valid until I go to Springfield and register it or something. That’s like $75. Then I need a certificate and that’s another $20. Good grief, this freaking ‘Doing Business As’ is like a total of $450. There’s been a lot of hidden costs in this.

I started reading Circus of the Damned. It’s book 4 or 5 in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. This book I really like. The other book was okay. This book is more like an action flick and I was actually upset that I had to put it down to get some sleep. I’m looking forward to reading more of it tomorrow morning.

Lay-off fallout

Blog 012707


Better news as of late. I did my meeting for Top Flite this morning. It kind of sucked. I had to get up at 6am because I was told to be there for between 6:30am and 7am. I got there for 6:45am. It sucks because I have to be back there for 7pm to 7am tonight. Because I’m one of the lowest people on the seniority list I was the third from the last to be called in. I was presented with a list of jobs available to me. In other words, I could bump people out of those jobs. I chose to do so. I’m usually Mr. Nice and I don’t like to say ‘no’ and I don’t like to step on people but I want to stay employed. I’m not as young as I use to be and now have a house to pay for. So I bumped somebody, I don’t know who.

Things could have been a lot worse. I am losing $2 an hour. I’ll also be spending more on food and gas as my work schedule goes from 3 or 4 day work weeks of 12 hours to 8 hour shifts 5 days a week. I chose a 3rd shift, 11pm to 7am shift working in custom stamp & packaging. I’ll still make decent money in that I’ll be middle class but things will be a little tighter around the household for money. But I shouldn’t be in any real trouble and I should be able to make all my bills and still have money for me which is good. I’m hearing the room I’m going to is easier than what I’m doing now. It’s also nice that I’ll be joining 3 or 4 people I already know. These are guys that also would have been laid off if they hadn’t bumped people. Things could have been a lot worse. So I work tonight and Sunday night, have Monday off and go to start my new shift on Tuesday night.

I had an option to take a 2nd shift job in the same room and working with some people from my room that took that shift. I’ve worked 2nd shift before and it’s okay. What really sucks about it is that I never saw anybody except on the weekends. I was either sleeping when my friends were off or they were working when I was off. I haven’t worked a third shift job yet but I have done 12 hour shifts at two different jobs from 7pm to 7am. I think the first time I did it the hours were 6pm to 6am.

One thing that could suck is that I will probably have to work 6 days a week before to long. Apparently most places work 5 normal days and then 1 mandatory OT day of 5+ hours. While the extra money would help, working six days a week would/will really suck. I also expect to spend more money on gas because I’ll be driving 5 days a week. I’ll also have to make lunches 5 days a week. And for now, I’m losing 8 hours of OT because I’m losing my 48 hour week every other week. On the plus side, I’m still employed, I make a pretty decent wage, I have my benefits fairly cheap and I’m adding to my 401k every week. I’m sooo sick of having to look for new jobs every two years. I still may have to eventually, but I’m okay for now. Another bonus is that I’m only losing one day of pay instead of having to go on unemployment which is a fairly decent drop in money. I also have call back rights to the RIM if they need people but I’m so far down on the list that almost 20 people are ahead of me.

My brother and nephew headed off to the train show today. It’s a model train hobby show. I usually like to go although I have no room for a train set with my brother living here. Still, I sent $15 with him to buy me some hopper cars if he sees them.

I’m selling the watch I got from Callaway to my brother-in-law. I had asked him if he wanted it for free as I told him I was probably going to sell on Ebay otherwise. Despite a $90 tag right on the watch my co-workers figured we could only get $20 for it. So that’s what my brother-in-law said he’d pay. Not bad of him since I offered it to him for free.

I think I use to work with my new supervisor in my new room at an old job I had. I’ll have to ask him.

My nephew left his wallet in my car last night. Not sure how he managed that since he was digging through it just before getting out of my car. I’m guessing it feel out of his hand or pocket.

I’m fairly zonked out right now as I write this since I went to bed at midnight last night. I was reading my Anita Blake novel. I’ve got about 100 pages left out of a 620+ book. It’s an okay read. The book still feels like a bunch of short stories linked by sex scenes and put together into a novel.

Haven’t really felt creative over the past few days. I think it’s because I’m tired and I keep having to do some driving somewhere every couple of hours. It’s hard to sit down and devote time to drawing, writing or painting while keeping one eye on the clock. That said, I do feel that I should be able to get more work done on the comic now that’ll I’ll be working only 8 hour shifts. I also won’t be stuck trying to do all my business stuff on only one day a week like I pretty much do now with my 12 hour shifts.

Because I still have a job and at the same place this could really work out well. My plan at this time is to use my tax money from this year for two things, even split. I plan on putting extra money on my hose loan principal. I also plan on putting the other half into my comic. I also have an eye towards getting a table in ‘artist alley’ for this year’s ConnectiCon. It’s a manga/anime con but it’s close and seemed to have very good attendance. It also happens when my plant has a scheduled shut down.

Okay, I think I’m done here. I’m glazing over at the very least.

Still miserable

Blog 012607

Well, I’m still in a foul mood. I’m also quite tired which I’m sure is contributing to my being miserable.

Quick recap: learned I’m getting laid off, hose of washing machine came loose flooding wash room and hit by credit card fraud for $350 to $400. Got up early to bring my mom for blood testing. Today was freaking freezing. It was zero degrees and then a nasty wind to make it something like -10. Hospital is remodeling so we had to walk a small ways and it was FREEZING cold. It was the coldest I’ve felt in a looooong time. After the hospital visit my parents if I could drive them to Wal-mart. Of the three Wal-marts in the area, they really only like the one two towns away which is about 20 minutes of driving further than the other two. I didn’t mind because my parents have been so good to me and my siblings for so long that I feel good helping them out. So I spent like 3+ hours out and about with them. Then I went out to do my own errands which didn’t take too long but was still cold as hell. Got waited on my by favorite bank teller which made things more tolerable. Went back to my parents for supper because my mom was making a family favorite, hamburgers and homemade French fries. One brother didn’t sow up although he was expected and another’s car died on his way home. Then the house got a call from my nephew looking for a ride. When he heard that my brother whose car had died wasn’t available he asked for me. I can’t help it, I get mad at my nephew. He drives me nuts. He’s twenty, directionless, and in debt up to his ears and quit college to work to pay off his bills. So pretty much, every two hours or less I was on the road driving all around all day on my day off. I also got a call late in the afternoon requesting that I be at work for 6:30 to 7am tomorrow. This is in addition to my working 12 hours later that night. Joy. But this is very important in that it tells me my options to see if maybe I might remain employed in some other capacity at my current company.

So I’m in a foul mood when I pick up my nephew. He does his usual which is to talking without even stopping for a breath. It’s just non-stop. He tells me about his plan to work at this slave-labor warehouse that’ll end all his ills. First, I’ve heard this plan for months now and he still hasn’t done it. Second, every person I’ve known to work at this extremely physically demanding job either looks like a zombie or has work related injuries from that warehouse. The place chews people up and spits them out. Their turnover rate is horrendous.

He also proceeds to tell me about his girlfriend who’s apparently now going to college in New York somewhere. Seeing how my nephew has no transportation and has limited vision so that he’s not allowed to drive at night this is a significant distance. He also mentions that she has a boyfriend and that my nephew and the boyfriend don’t get along. In fact, he doesn’t really hang out with her anymore other than phone calls. But he still called her his girlfriend in that it sounded like his ‘girlfriend’, not friend that happens to be female. Maybe I misheard him. But I don’t think so.

I also get mad at him because it seems like he makes all these plans with no transportation lined up and ends up calling people that day, usually only a couple of hours (if!) in advance to cart him around. This pisses me off because it always seems his activities end smack dab in the middle of my night. I don’t enjoy getting involved in something just to have to set it aside and hope I’ll retain the same interest in it when I return home – usually mad. So despite my doing stuff, it revolves around him because he is dependent on others and this hasn’t changed in years. And I don’t expect it to change either. So that’s why my nephew drives me nuts and I get so mad at him.

So yeah, I’m still miserable.

The good news just keeps rolling in...

What a day.

So I find out I'm getting laid off. I come home to find a note from my brother accounting an incident where a hose on the washing came off and spilled water all over the wash room. Then after a short snooze I went out and got the mail. Got two bill but I've been expecting them. One is about $17 more than I expected. Not too bad. But the other was my credit card and I found three charges on the bill that weren't mine to the tune of about $350.00. So I immediately called the credit card company and they have cancelled that account and will issue me a new one.

What a suckless 24 hours.

Goddamn it, not again.

Just when I was feeling secure in financial matters I got word at the start of work yesterday that there are layoff's again and I'm done after this coming Sunday night.

There may be some options of bumping temps or non-union workers out of their jobs and taking their place (which makes me feel like dirt) and that might be my only way of staying with the company. There is also a feeling that most people laid off this time aren't coming back. They said they would have some more information for us on our return workday of this coming Saturday.

If taking someone else's job doesn't come to pass, my benefits end at the end of Janurary, no 401k, and no nice paychecks.

Fuck.

I'm feeling fairly miserable right now.

Fuck.

New free time and new hobbies

Blog 012307


Whew! Just got the mail out in time to be grabbed by the mail man. I sent out 6 bills I think. I walked back into my house and within five minutes the mail truck arrived and took ‘em away. I’m quite happy with myself in that I paid and extra $200 on the principal of my house loan this month.

I made my first painting yesterday. I kind of sucks. The colors look really neat, but you really can’t tell what the hell it is. LOL! It’s suppose to be a painting of my computer background which is a seascape with rocky outcroppings. It’s a really nice shade of blue for the water and sky. I find the background very eye pleasing.

Rather bummed the Patriots lost to the Colts this past Sunday. I noticed on a couple of comic forums I go to that people enjoyed ‘piling on’ on the Patriots. The ones that posted were quite happy to see the Patriots lose and usually resorted to name calling and such. They also called the Patriots poor sports and had no class and all sorts of other stuff. It just felt like a bunch of trolls coming out from under their rocks. At least the game was good and exciting and might be better overall than the Super Bowl.

I’m not sure who I want to win the Super Bowl. I guess I don’t really care. I don’t hate either the Colts or the Bears. I guess I’m leaning more towards the Bears just to shut up Colts fans.

I bought $20 of paint brushes today. I have some lame brushes and that might be part of the problem with my first painting. Painting at this point is a lot harder than I thought. And I want to paint traditionally. Maybe some other day I’ll do digital painting on my computer. But there’s a certain romance to sloshing paint on a canvas. I’m using ‘canvas’ paper. It’s a thick paper almost like cardboard with a fairly rough surface.

Forgot to mention that I apologized to my friend at work the other day. Things are good between us and back to normal. I guess at some point he mentioned what I said to our supervisor. I was rather surprised by this. I guess he ‘told’ on me but I’m not sure. The supervisor never said anything to me about it. I guess I had hurt my buddy’s feelings pretty bad. I have learned to be a little more careful about what I say. I need this reminder every so often as my dry whit comes off really serious and ends up insulting people rather than being funny. It’s a life lesson I need to keep working on.

I’m 365 pages into my 600+ page Anita Blake novel. It’s good enough to keep me reading but I can’t say I love it. Being a later book in the series, it does seem to be a story revolving around sex rather than a story using sex to help tell the story. However, I do enjoy a lot about the setting and I like most of the characters. If I had to assign a grade to the book I’d probably give it a ‘B-‘ for now. I have noticed that it does seem to be a lot of little stories wrapped into one big story. After 365 pages I can’t really tell if there is a main villain. There are a lot of foils and villainous type characters but no one I’ve been able to point to and say ‘here’s the main bad guy’. I guess that’s why it feels like a bunch of short stories linked together to make a big novel.

All of a sudden, a lot of my spare time seems to have just opened up. The football season is over except for one remaining game. This means that I won’t be watching upwards of 12 hours of football on Sundays. Fantasy football is done so I won’t be running to my computer for updates on my teams.

The family that I play Magic the Gathering with on Monday nights that I have off switched Magic night on me. It’s still Mondays but now it falls on Mondays nights which I work. So that seems to be a new free night for me until that changes. In a way I don’t mind. I was having fun and do have fun usually playing Magic. I did get sort of upset over a ruling though. I had learned as a fundamental rule back in the day that a creature going to the graveyard cannot be used for anything else. According to my friends, that has changed. So essentially, you can double and maybe even triple dip with a creature. So essentially in game mechanics as I’m told by my friends, my creature attacks and his creature blocks. His creature might have an ability to also tap to do something which is fine. Our creatures deal lethal damage to each other. Both creatures are not saved in any way and are ‘going to the graveyard’. At that use to be it, nothing more can be done with the creatures. Now, apparently, you can still do stuff with the creatures. After having the complete opposite ingrained in my head for over 8 years which included tournament play I find this to be a shock. It’s what really drives me away from collectible games. The rules are ever changing which leads to confusion, fights, and can really put players that are fringe players or don’t have the latest cards at a severe disadvantage. In the end, it makes the game unejoyable. Constant rules changing that makes many of the purchased game products obsolete have helped to drive me away from virtually all collectible card games, tabletop games, and even role-playing games. I play games for fun and relaxation, not to argue about or be forced to track down the latest rules changes.

So right now, life is fairly calm and stable and the outlook for continued success look promising. So life is good.

lots 'o little things

Blog 01/21/07

Lots of little things so where to start? In no particular order:

Got a bit of a scare cleared up. I had received a message in the mail that something was up with my medical coverage and that any bill after Nov 2006 would not be reimbursed. Turns out after a check at work that the notice was for COBRA benefits when I was laid off. Hoping/knowing I was going back I never signed up for COBRA. But it was still a bit of concern thinking that my medical health insurance was in a furor.

While cleaning up the above mess I had the benefits lady increase my 401k contribution from 8% to 12%. Combined with my IRA at a separate bank I should hopefully now be putting away enough money for my retirement.

I think my house got so dry last night I got a bloody nose. I woke up with a nasty snot in my nose. Upon cleaning it out with a tissue and inspecting (all guys seem to inspect their snots) it really looked like a lump of dried blood. It’s been cold and windy lately and I can recall this happening before during last winter. This despite the fact that I have a humidifier running all night at the foot of my bed.

Spent a bit of money last night. I bought a new printer to replace my dead one. I bought an Epson C 88+ for a little over $80. I was actually hoping to spend only around $60 but couldn’t find a printer that I liked for that cost. I took and Epson over a Hewett-Packard because the HP printers in the same price range all have the single color ink cartridge. All three colors are on one cartridge so that if blue runs out (which is used in almost all colors) you’re stuck buying a new cartridge no matter what level of red and yellow are left. Got the printer up and working fine. I can print out comic scripts again! Most of the money to pay for the printer was a cash Christmas gift from my oldest brother. On a side note, my brother has to travel this week for work. The poor slob has to fly down to Hawaii for a number of days. What a hard life. LOL!

Using the gift card another brother got for Christmas I stopped in at my semi-local Barnes & Nobel bookstore. I LOVE bookstores. B&N was rather filled for a Saturday night. There was a small band playing what sounded like Irish music. Maybe that was the reason. They sounded pretty good. I noticed two old co-workers from the bindery were there. The wife is a cashier there and the husband was just standing around in his coat. I didn’t say ‘hi’ because a second or two after I noticed them I was called over to another cashier to pay for my books. I bought a book on how to paint with acrylic paints. More on that later.

I also bought two Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books to check out Anita Blake. More on that later.

I had also stopped at an A.C. Moore art store to look for a couple of things. Armed with a 40% off coupon I purchased a set of 24 (small tubes) acrylic paints. I also bought two Micron pens each have a .05 pen tip. While putzing around a girl was there with her father buying art paper – looked like exclusively Strathmore. She was either late high school or early college from the looks of her and cute as an added bonus. I was actually fairly interested in talking to her about art because the pair seemed to be buying a whole boat load of supplies. And I wanted to play ‘know it all’ since I worked at Strathmore for awhile. But I didn’t. I bought my stuff and headed over to B&N.

I also hit the comic shop during this spending spree.

I probably looked like I had just gotten out of bed during my travels. I got up at 3pm Saturday having gotten out of work at 7am that morning. I wasn’t sure if I would be going out anywhere so I had on sleeping leisure wear which is my current favorite stuff to wear. So I was walking around the comic shop, A.C. Moore’s which is located in the biggest mall in western MA (maybe even in MA), then to B&N and then to Comp USA all in my waist length winter coat and shades of blue plaid felt pants. LOL! I had a normal pull over shirt though that could actually be worn out to a casual dinner though. LOL!

I called up to check on the status of my unemployment check. I found out that there was a problem with the address and that it was never sent out. Damn it! I was waiting forever for the damn thing since I filled over two weeks ago. So they mailed it out Friday.

I might get to look like some rich guy at my credit union where I cash all my checks. I haven’t cashed my paycheck from last week. I expect to do that Monday. I’ll be getting my unemployment check that week and then my paycheck on Wednesday for the week I just finished this past Saturday. Hopefully I’ll get my favorite clerk and maybe flirt with her. The last bank clerk I flirted with hinted at interest. Our first ‘date’ if you could have called it that would have been helping her move. I declined and that was the end of that.

So I’ve been on this real urge to try out painting. I had gotten a small acrylic set some years ago but lately I’ve been all gung-ho about learning actually how to do it. My only problem is actually doing it. That sounds really stupid. I only have so much paper and I always fret about what subject to paint that I get all tense about it and end up doing something else. But now I’ve got a book and some new paints and I’m ready to go. I just need to pick a subject. Sigh. I don’t know why I do that to myself.

So I have this internet friend that I could recall talking about this Anita Blake fictional character. I had seen her even post that she had gotten a preview copy of the (then) latest book. I had heard her say some thing that mildly interested me. Recently the first book has started coming out in comic book format. I picked it up and despite the ragging of my friends found enough to like to look into the actual novels further. So I did that last night. I bought books number 9 and number 4 of the series. I know I should start with the first book and all but I went with numbers 4 & 9 because of the titles and small excerpts I’ve read.

So in a nutshell, Anita Blake is a feisty 5’3 woman set in a world where the undead are legal citizen and so are lycanthropes. So far, I like the setting better than I expected. The imagery in the books certainly doesn’t hurt. Anita seems to constantly be in various sexy outfits and high heeled boots. I can get behind that! A lot of the guys and pretty fem or bi which doesn’t do anything for me but I can live with it. Apparently further into the series of books the more erotic and sexual the stories become. I haven’t found a sex scene yet but apparently they can get graphic. So I like the setting, I like lycanthropes, and I like the some what fetish aspect of the book and Anita as a character. Some of the other stuff I pretty much glaze over. I haven’t found anything I outright dislike yet. So last night I plowed through about 40+ pages of the 600+ page book #9 and read a few more this morning. The only reason I stopped reading last night was because it was 2am and I didn’t want to be up all night.

I later woke up at roughly 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep because I was starving! Even though a piece of bread and a tall glass of grape juice soothed my belly I still couldn’t get back to sleep. Thrown in there was a pee and a snot rendering. After some more tossing and turning I read the first 45 pages of my new art book. Since most of the pages where pictures I only really read for a short time. So I got up, took a shower, loaded up some laundry and read more pages of Anita Blake. Right now, I’m really on a reading kick (my Entertainment Weekly is sitting unread though) Anita is my favorite. To compensate, I haven’t been playing video games much lately. I do have 3 days worth of dishes to do.

Ending on a bit of a sad note. Seems, or at least I hope this is the case, that one of my internet friends seems to have given up the internet for the most part. Where are you Sara? I haven’t seen her sign on to any internet site that we frequent since late last December. And before that small burst of internet time she seemed to disappear for over a month also. I miss shooting the breeze with Sara about comics, my comic, and a lot of wrestling stuff. But, in the end, it’s better that she goes to college like she’s doing and experience life rather than spending late night hours huddled in front of a computer screen.

And finally final, here’s hoping that the New England Patriots beat the Colts to advance to the Super Bowl for around the 4th time in 6 years (or is it 5 years?)!

Loss of a friend?

Blog 011707


Work this past weekend was decent. I think I pissed off a good friend though. He had crappy molds in the wee hours of the morning. I would turn around and help put his golf balls into the autodegator. After several times of doing this I said, “you fucker, that’s the last time I’m doing this,” in what I thought was a sarcastic voice telling him I was joking. Well, I think it came out sounding really serious. He just looked at me like ‘jump off a cliff and die’. So I responded with what I thought was another teasing line ‘don’t give me your wrestling stare’ – because we had talked earlier about how he was at a pro wrestling school. He just turned away and went back to work. We didn’t speak the rest of the night. He’s a quiet guy so I wasn’t totally sure if he was mad but I sensed it. At the end of the night I said to him something to the effect of ‘we did well tonight’ meaning production and clean-up. He just stared at me like why was I even talking to him. It’s possible he was mad at something else because he spends a lot of time on his Blackberry like device instant messenging. But I think what I said and the way it came out pissed him off.

Strangely enough, the same night I had to work with my nemesis. This is the guy that I got into a pretty serious and foul mouthed argument with where we really laid into each other on the insults. He was behind me in the rotation so I went about my business trying to do what I usually do which is make sure the next guy isn’t screwed over by what I did. We spoke once or twice and it was polite and he even thanked me for something. It was small whatever I did but I was stunned the whole night. Looks like for now I’ll have to remove him from my hate list. Seems ever since that blow up things have at least been respectful towards one another. I can live with that. It’s better than expecting a fight every time we meet.

I’m most likely stealing an incident from my friend. She was training on a new job where you get a chance to sit and wait during production for like ten minutes at a time. Apparently she was leaning against the wall while sitting in a chair. I guess this big nasty cockroach crawled onto her head and down her shoulder before she finally noticed it. Reports had this cockroach as long as a grown man’s thumb! I’ve seen the occasional cockroach at work and they do seem to be quite big. Well, Miss co-worker was pretty freaked out the rest of the night not that I blame her. I didn’t help matters much about 30 minutes after the incident. When we mold the golf balls they have extra material on them called flash. I took some of this and tried hitting her trainer with it trying to make him think it was a cockroach. I missed twice and then Miss co-worker returned. I was able to hit her on the back of the arm from a distance of about 15 to 20. She jumped like 2 feet in the air. Despite my long distance apology I was almost crying I was laughing so hard. The poor girl took a lot of teasing the rest of the night. LOL!

I was looking for a way to make Jaina’s room at the academy in the comic kind of grungy and rundown. I may alter the cockroach story to help display this. I’m thinking Jaina is asleep and brushes something off her hair. She wakes to find a giant cockroach on her hand! She freaks and sleeps in the hall the rest of the night. She then has to spend what little money she has on bug killer because she doesn’t trust the janitors to help her out at the academy.

I got more inking done yesterday on some of the pages I recently penciled. They look pretty good I think. I will be redrawing one panel on a page though. The page looks a little too similar from panel to panel and a change of vantage point should solve the problem.

The Rick Olney stuff from the previous blog continues. Looks like he folded his Tight Lip Entertainment company. Apparently some people have been serving him with court papers after he continuously threatens to sue others. On Jan 11th he and his wife dissolved the company. LOL! For those suing him, it seems they can still go after him. Someone brought it up on the ‘Thread’ about wondering if his wife knew anything about all these legal issues. It was thought that there was a good chance Olney keep his wife in the dark about everything. She knows it now whatever she knew or may have thought she knew earlier. LOL!

Watched the Richard Donner version of Superman II last night. I love both versions. The movies were a lot of fun ever since I first saw them as a kid. I’m not sure where I first saw Superman II but I think it was in a movie theater. I know I loved it. That would have been 1978 or 1979. Ursa made a lasting impression on me when I was a little kid.

Haven’t seen my unemployment check from the week of Christmas yet. I may have to call to see what’s up. I have funding for all my bills but the missing check has cut into the paycheck that I use for whatever I want instead of bills.

I’m actually looking forward to taxes this year. Everyone keeps on telling me that I should get a decent refund because of the interest I pay on my mortgage. I’m not sure how this works but I’m all for a bigger tax refund. Hopefully I won’t be disappointed. In any event, if I get anything back (anything over say $200) I’m planning on putting half towards comic production and half towards extra money on my mortgage principal. We’ll see.

The report for Sequential Tart sent me a new question for my interview for The Necropolis Chronicles. I’ve responded with the extra info she requested. Not sure when it’ll get posted but I’ll be looking forward to it.

Over and out.

Another day in the life...

Blog 011207


Ugh! Couldn’t get to sleep last night and stayed up past 4 a.m. Some late reading of “The Physics of Super-Heroes’ helped to knock me out. The book is an okay read. When the formulas are talked about, I get sort of glassy-eyed. Pretty much, I like it when the author says whether Spider-man’s webbing could hold his weight or if the Flash could run up the side of a building.

The Rick Olney mess I wrote about in my last blog continues. This guy has gotten several big name comic book creators going against him. And the truth about the guy is really coming forward. I’m really starting to wonder if this Olney does have some sort of mental disability. The amount of lying this man does is incredible. Actually, it’s stunning. And now that the truth is coming out and that he is being served with legal papers he is trying to erase virtually every single post he’s ever made. Some of his truths that are coming to light as lies include claiming on numerous boards that George Lucas named a Star Wars character after him. Worse, it seems this made up story has Olney gaining Lucas’s appreciation by giving kids with cancer free comics through a charity of Lucas’s. Are you kidding me?!?!?! Falsifying and completely making up a story about helping kids with cancer? Good lord. Nobody has yet to find out if he really served as a Marine during the early 1970’s. And he apparently claimed that Gail Simone, a writer that really brought this all to the forefront was a close friend despite numerous e-mails from her stating that she wanted nothing to do with him. It’s almost turning out that this guy’s whole life is a lie. It’s like some crazy movie from A&E or Lifetime or something. Totally unreal.

Got most of another page inked for issue three of the Necropolis Chronicles yesterday. I also snuck in some gaming on Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance, a lame game or two of Call of Duty 2, some reading on super-hero physics and reading on painting. I’ve been wanting to get into painting lately. So except for to getting to sleep after 4am, yesterday was a fairly decent day.

David Beckham was signed to a 5 year contract for $250 million dollars by the American Major League Soccer or something like that. That equals the highest paid player in baseball who is roundly considered over-paid. Where does the soccer league get money like that? I don’t think that Beckham will usher soccer into a new era in the U.S. Soccer has to climb over hockey and basketball just to become the third most watched sport. The NFL rules all and will for some time to come. Soccer just isn’t that interesting to watch for most Americans including me.

I expect to be running around a bit after the mail shows up. I’m waiting to see if my unemployment check will show up. I’ve received two paychecks in the time since I (and apparently others at work) filed for the week we shut down of Christmas.

I also expect to nap at some point or pass out in the late afternoon. I got to bed after 4am and got up shortly after 11 am. I feel fairly groggy. It may hamper my desire to accomplish things today.

Tried to post this yesterday

Blog 010907


A decent weekend.

First, The New England Patriots advanced a game further into the NFL play-off’s by beating their division rivals, The New York Jets. This was not a given victory from the start because the Jets coach was with the Patriots for a couple of years and was their defensive co-coordinator just last year. The Patriots will now face San Diego, one of the best teams all year and a team that has a NFL record breaking running back. Despite this, I feel pretty good about the Patriots because the San Diego coach has a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to play-off games.

Saturday was good eats at the parentels. Tacos. I haven’t had tacos in forever!

Sunday I spent all day with friends playing Axis & Allies which is a board game designed around replaying WW II. The Axis (with me as Japan) won the first game. I was America the second game but our hot rolling noob had to leave. Then the drunk and I started faultering with our dice rolls. It ended in a draw because of the time but after a really fast start, it was starting to look not so good for the Allies.

Recently I’ve been following this comic book forum thread at comic book resources. In Gail Simone’s You’ll All Be Sorry forum is a thread about a comic book con promoter trying to become a comic book publisher. It’s absolutely addicting and fascinating through 271 pages. Yep. 271.The promoter, Rick Olney, apparently doesn’t pay his employees. I’m talking big names in the business like Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone who are currently popular writers that have worked regularly for Marvel and DC for years. When Dixon spoke up about not getting paid, Olney started in with all this stuff claiming Dixon was lying and had broken a NDA (non-disclosure agreement) and that because of that he will not pay Dixon. It only gets worse. A number of other creators probably numbering at least 8 publicly have stated that they have been not been paid either. Olney has stated that people making these claims are liars, or that the check was lost in the mail or that they have broken their NDA’s by stating they have not been paid and that he has his lawyer investigating the matter. He won’t even pay his former public relations person the $800.00 he owes her. And it only gets worse. He dives into making threats to people including physical violence, calling virtually any female comic creators that venture into the thread bitches or worse, and has made numerous anti-gay remarks including calling many male comic creators gay. People are now looking into his claims of him being a marine that served during Vietnam and so far nobody can find any record of him having served. Oh yeah, he blatantly lied about his non-profit organization until people investigated to find that it was never registered with the federal government.

It’s really stunning. Now it’s to the point where it’s not quite enjoyable to read the thread because Olney comes on and just posts insults but the more he posts the more people investigate him and find that pretty much his whole life is a lie. I restate once again that it’s absolutely fascinating and completely addictive following the thread. And nobody, not one single person has come forward to make any kind of defense for Rick Olney.

On lighter news, I’ve been sent questions for an interview from a columnist from Sequential Tart. This is really cool and my first official interview for the comic. I’m still working on some of the answers and I’m not sure when the interview will be posted but I’ll let you all know as soon as I know.

Disappearing for two days now. In other words – I have to work tonight and tomorrow night.

New Year's Day posting

Blog 010107


The New Year’s Day blog.

No review of the year for me other than to say it was a pretty terrific year other than some of the health issues my parents faced.

New Year’s Eve was pretty low key for me. Seeing how I don’t drink and booze is a major depressant on my system just having a couple of beers is not fun for me.

Found myself in a weird situation at of all places, Radio Shack, a small electronics store. I went in looking for a cheap antenna for my bedroom TV (long story with the cable). Found one I felt would suffice and went to purchase it. I could see a young kid of maybe 12 and his middle aged mom coming into the store obviously wanting to return something. Being a nice guy I let them go first instead of beating them to the counter. A lone salesman was there helping a middle aged couple with activating a Blackberry or something. This actually took longer than the whole time I was in the store which was probably around 10 minutes. So he rings a bell or something after a couple of minutes of us waiting there. Another employee comes out from the back and takes the return people. It was around 4pm I think on New Year’s Eve day and the lady wanted cash back. She was a bit bitchy to her kid so I was already preparing myself for the verbal combat this lady was ready to wage. Here’s where it gets weird. The employee said they didn’t have the cash to return to her. Apparent whatever they bought was at least $80 but I think more. I did find that the store not having the money in cash was a bit weird. So I could see where the bitchy lady was coming from. The only thing I could think of was that the manager had maybe deposited the big amount of money for the day or something because of the coming holiday. I don’t really know. So I could hear the customer start politicking about not having the time to wait around and excuse, excuse, excuse. The final answer was to either take a check/some sort of voucher or wait around and see if enough customers would make cash purchases. This was apparently the word of the manager that never ventured out from the back room of the store. So the lady that didn’t have time to wait suddenly had time to wait.

So the clerk leans around the woman and helps me out. As I’m heading to the item I wanted with the clerk the customer says to me ‘please pay in cash’. Like I wanted anything to do with her. Yeesh. So they have my antenna and I purchase it – in cash because that had been my original plan the whole time. The customer sees this and says “ I love you’. I just wanted to tell her to get lost. I didn’t help them much. My purchse was $22.04. I heard her kid say something to the effect of ‘we just need $68 now.’ He may have said $86, I can’t clearly recall. I grabbed my stuff and headed out being polite to the clerk but totally ignoring the customer. While the store not having cash was really bizarre, I’m never forget working in retail for 10 years and having been shit on by lots of people treating me like a terrorist. So I often root for the low level employees whenever fitting.

After some good chow of plain old hamburgers (I hardly ever eat them so they tasted awesome) I headed over to my buddy’s place. I didn’t have much fun there. First I seemed to be hit with a wave of exhaustion once I got there. Not sure entirely why, maybe it was the hamburgers from an hour earlier. I started yawning every minute. Then they started in with the sexual harassment. Trailer Park Trash had apparently said earlier in the day that he had wanted to see me masturbate. Trailer Park Trash is terrific for sexual harassment. So the guys still left at my buddy’s insisted over and over that I call Trailer Park and harass him about it. And then the other harassment started which is usual about them saying I screw sheep and farm animals. So after 45 minutes of yawning and sexual harassment and knowing that they were planning on getting drunk, I left. They were pretty surprised at this but wished me a Happy New Year’s and handshakes and attempted male hugging but I still left. In good cheer the drunk mooned me from his second story window.

So I got home, found my antenna works quite well, played some Marvel Ultimate Alliance and surfed the net and went to bed. But I was happier doing that than staying at my buddy’s.

Saturday was better. I went over my friend’s house to play Magic and they also had some D&D lined up. I discovered on Friday night at 1am that I wasn’t going to my aunt & uncle’s so I didn’t have anything for the D&D stuff. I wasn’t really interested in it anyways.

So they were all sick over there and the father was sneezing constantly. I eventually told him to grab a bag and keep the handkerchiefs right next to him. He did that finally. The games were decent. Then the other guests showed up. A new guy was with this crowd and I felt really bad for him. His two friends eliminated him within the first 10 minutes of playing and the game of 7 people lasted like an hour.

After that Magic game they pulled out the D&D stuff. I pulled out my drawing pad and sketched up three pages of lay-outs for issue 3. The two friends again eliminated their buddy in about 10 minutes of a 2 hour battle.

After that we went back to Magic and they again eliminated him within 10 minutes of a hour game. So this poor guy spent something like 5 hours at this house and played games for like an hour tops. I’m not sure how he felt but I didn’t think he was all that happy about it. His friends got great jollies out of eliminating him early.

They all hated me one game. I was playing what’s called a Stasis deck. Means only I get to play if I get the right combo. And I got the right combo. All remaining 5 players tried to eliminate me as a team but couldn’t do shit. But I had no offense so I really couldn’t either. So it did get a bit boring and nobody liked my deck.

Had some weird dreams. One had me not even really in my dream. I was like a director determining things from off-screen. These two women built like porn stars were robbing a bank or something. They each had shotguns. The black haired woman was in black latex pants and a bright pink latex bustier. Suffice to say she had porn sized breasts. LOL! The other lady was a bit less attractive than her friend with dirty blond shoulder length hair that was kind of frizzy. She wore a black latex jumpsuit and also had a shotgun. I can’t clearly recall the dreams because I had them Friday night I think. The women were pretty angry and tough and were ready to kill. At least the black haired lady was. Maybe ‘lady’ is too generous of a term for her.

Another had me going back to college. The college rooms reminded me of high school but it was college. I don’t recall much else from that dream.

I also had another dream that when I woke up from it I was like ‘wtf?’ but I’ve totally forgotten it.

Started drawing up the 3 pages for issue 3 that I laid out at my buddy’s as mentioned above. I woke up in kind of a pissy mood despite I think 10 hours of sleep. I’ve been replaying last night at my buddy’s place in my head and that hasn’t helped. Guess it rather pissed me off. I’m not a big fan of treating people like shit and then going ‘we’re friends, you know I didn’t mean it’. I’ve been treated better by my enemies. So I vented through my drawing board and I’ve liked what I’ve produced so far. Any time I get mad and draw I usually get really focused on my art and vent and produce good looking art.

While writing this my brother came home and we started chatting a bit. I put him in a bad mood which sucks. We were talking about his son, my nephew. Seems the ex-wife really restricts what my nephew does. He got in trouble for watching tv. Seems he’s not allowed to watch tv on Mondays and Tuesdays. I guess he’s only allowed to play video games a half hour a day and those half hours can only be on Saturday and Sunday. And he has to do his own laundry. My nephew is 7. It’s why my brother tries so hard when he had his son to make sure his son has a fun time. Seems like the poor kid’s in prison the rest of the week.

It also seems that my nephew is already watching calories. He doesn’t really eat candy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing except that it’s because of his mom and what she eats. My own mother has heard my nephew talking about watching his calories when my brother brings him over. So we still have all his Halloween and Christmas stocking candy here uneaten. I asked my brother if he minded if I eat some of it to keep from going to waste. He said I could.

I told my brother to play some Call of Duty 2. If we don’t use some form of art or music to vent, heart racing gaming or physical activity is another good way to burn away the frustration of ill feelings.

And now I want to play Call of Duty 2 (on-line) again since his computer’s been blasting away for about 15 minutes now – complete with smiles and excited comments about how the game is progressing.

So I’m done here.