Monday, July 21, 2008

Featured comic and a terrific weekend!

Blog 072108

A terrific weekend and a bitch’in start to the week.

Over at Drunkduck.com, my comic book there, The Necropolis Chronicles was posted as a FEATURED COMIC on the front page. This is really awesome. While my page views run around 250-300 a day, because my comic will be on the front page of the website for the whole week views have jumped up over 1200+ for the first day alone. And since I have enough material to update the comic every day for the next month it should really help the comic grow in core readership. So that’s the bitch’in news and it’s totally awesome.

I’ve also started work this past week on doing three panel strips to keep the material fresh and new. I just don’t have the time to work a normal 40 hour a week job and draw, ink & letter a normal size comic page which is 10 inches wide by 15 inches tall. It’s just too much. So by adapting what my local paper does using comics with just three square panels I can at least keep some sort of new and original material coming. So I’m hoping to build up some pages since I have a month’s grace period before I really have to start worrying about it. And unfortunately, the comic will have to go with weekly updates instead of every day. That’ll hurt readership but it’s better than just ending the comic or it going on hiatus.

The weekend was terrific. My friend Rob came back from the west coast to see friends and family. Friday a group of us had breakfast which was cool. It was Rob’s birthday so I picked up his bill not that it was all that much. I had to work that not but Saturday we ended up going to a WWE wrestling show that was in town. I had gone to a wrestling show in years! Maybe something like 6 years or more. So I picked up Rob, pitstopped at the comic store and then made our way to the civic center. Traffic rather sucked so I parked at a nearby hotel. It ended up being $9! But I was expecting something outrageous like that so I had $10 budgeted for parking.

As we walked to the arena there was a lo-o-o-ong line of people two or more curving around the side of the building. We made a quick discussion about our chances at tickets and went to the front of the line. We saw people just walking in but the line wasn’t moving so we walked in. Almost all the ticket booths had no customers so we walked up and asked about tickets. $22 later we each had a ticket and joined the throngs of people heading in. We were able to totally skip that whole freaking huge line of people. It was fairly awesome to walk right up, grab tickets and head right in. I made a comment about maybe seeing people I know there. I didn’t see any. Rob made a comment he wouldn’t see anyone because he’d been gone for around 8 years. Literally a minute later this guy, a former co-worker, says ‘hi’ to Rob and mentions he hasn’t seen Rob in awhile. LOL! Go figure!

A bottle of Gatorade at the consessions stand cost me $3.50. I have purchased the next size up at my local supermarket for $1! But I figured I would be thirsty because it was really muggy out. Rob’s bottle of Aquafina cost $3.25. Inside the arena it was really cool and comfortable. This was a surprise. There are no real bad seats in the civic center since it holds like 9,900 seats. But after the show started I did wish I had gone for the next seat up that cost $37 a pop.

Triple H and later the Hardys got the biggest ovations from the crowd. It actually started to hurt my ears. And I let myself get caught up in the moment which helped me enjoy the show greatly. Rob never really said much other than some comments to me but I was booing the guys I don’t like and cheering the guys I do like. My current favorite wrestler, John Morrison, a Jim Morrison look-a-like scored the pin for the victory in a fatal 4 tag team match. The next night at the pay-per-view he and his partner lost the titles in the same type of match. L

So we got to see a lot of stars like: Batista, CM Punk, Kofi somethingerother (a current champ), Fetus, Hornswoggle(!), Finley, The Great Kali (he sucks but he’s 7 feet tall), The Big Show, Umaga, several WWE Divas who got into a fight, and some others whose names I don’t know. I had a great time and I think Rob had a good time. The only downer was that local boy John Cena was scheduled to appear but didn’t make the show.

We left right after the last match that was CM Punk defending his title against Batista. Batista lost by pinfall after accidentally ramming his head into a steel chair. We hustled out to beat the crowd and missed Batista power-bombing CM Punk after the match was over.

The show started at &:30pm and got out at 10:30pm. We were both hungry as hell and stopped at a Friendly’s restaurant. I got a big burger and Rob got a 5 scoop sundae. It’s called a Reesce’s Pieces sundae and is one of my favorites with hot fudge, peanut butter sauce and whipped cream and Pieces on top. But Rob choose 3 scoops of double chocolate, a scoop of peanut butter crunch and a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Ewwww. He finished it though. My burger was pretty tasty but I ran into my usual onion problem. The onions were round rings. I tried to cut them but didn’t really succeed. So later when I was biting into my burger I failed to cut through the onion and pulled them out so that they were hanging on my chin as I tried to chew my mouthful. Quite embarrassing.

After that we headed back to Dwain’s where Rob’s staying. It was just us so he showed me pictures of his kids. Usually this is totally boring but I have never really seen his kids so it was decent. I left at midnight got home, read a comic and fell asleep.

I had a really bizarre dream influenced by the comic I read just before going to sleep. There was a futuristic ad for a sci-fi gladiator game and my dream brought it to life with me as the main character. I was kicking some serious ass using, of all things, a glorified fireplace poker as my weapon. I was then facing three level bosses essentially. These were three opponents all about twice the size of my dude and more powerful. All were different and seemed like something out of Power Rangers. One looked sort of like the goddess Kali, a woman with 4 arms. I stabbed the wench right in the Adam’s apple as she tried to cast a spell on me. It was very cool and gratifying. Better yet, she could still case her spell since it was mainly a dance step or something but the dream ended so I never suffered the ominous threat to me.

I had another dream the same night. Since Rob and I were checking out babes at the wrestling show and just before going to sleep I was thinking about Jaina from my comic (see above) I had a dream where I was alternating between star and director. This style of dream for me is common actually. Sometimes I’m seeing things first person and then in the dream I’m seeing it as if I’m a director on a movie set following the action but controlling it at the same time. On a quick note I think I had a dream come true at work where I saw the events in my dream unfold before me in real life. I have like 6 of those types of dream or less a year.

So in this second dream I was in avatar form which was female. My avatar had a semi short black skirt that was business-like tight and knee high black boots with stiletto heels. She also had a white blouse. Her hair was essentially exactly like this woman sitting near us in that it was maybe middle to the back and straight and dark glossy brown. She had it parted sort of on the side. I was walking with Dwain and Rob. They had to take a leak and my avatar almost walked into the men’s room with them! The area we were walking in was sort of an outdoor, almost modern day kind of Ancient Rome with lots of arches and thin streets were everyone was walking. Still, “I” had to pee. Guys always say piss so in my dream I was trying to make the avatar more female as if I was writing a script.

I had to walk around the whole outside bathroom structure and finally found the woman’s bath. I remember feeling awkward and not wanting to go in not wanting to see pissing women and not exactly sure how to conduct myself. LOL! I was shocked when I went in. It was like a stone old folks home or something. Women of all ages were there but the oldest women, some decrepit, seemed to live there! It was like having a stone bed with a hole to shit in right next to you. The whole place really stunk bad and was totally unclean and gross. I had to walk around the joint in almost a full circle before I found and open stone seat to piss in. I remember something like starting to pull down the skirt and don’t recall what else. I think I woke up. But later on I was walking around the open market area again except now it was like a common department store with current shelving and whatnot. I was strolling through a toy department area where my co-worker was buying stuff for his son. I was going to say hello but he was too busy. Not sure if he would’ve recognized me or what. Better left unvisited I guess. I started looking at Star Wars stuff and reminiscing about my own Star Wars toys and I think I woke up.

I took a piss 2 hours after I went to bed after the wrestling show. I must’ve digested the burger because I had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep. I think I tossed and turned until I finally rolled out of bed 3 or 4 hours later Sunday morning.

My brother and kids headed out to the beach and later I went to Rob’s parents’ place for his birthday party. Rob told me about it the night before after wrestling. I got to see his brother Ron there and his kids. It had been almost 2 years since I had seen Ron in person. We used to be great friends. We still are but I never see him anymore. He’s got a family with four kids and I work nights so there’s never much time to get together. Some of mutual friends came over and we had a decent time just sitting around shooting the shit. One thing that was amusing was Rob’s uncle. He’s older, probably in his sixties from the look of him. But he has an XBox 360 and he was just right along with us about games hardly missing a beat.

I left before the pizzas arrived having made plans earlier in the week to eat at my parents. Goodbyes took awhile and I got to my parents a little late but supper was still warm. I chilled with the family and slunked home for some internet and Rockband before bed.

I’m stuck in Rockband. I really suck at the drums but I love them. I’m now stuck on two songs that I can’t get past on medium. So I’m about halfway through all the songs on drums on medium and I won’t be going farther which rather sucks. I can practice the songs but I don’t even make it halfway through them and I struggle just to make it that far. My problem is that I play music and sing by both feel and ear. Rockband is very visual in that you hit notes as they scroll towards you. So it’s a real challenge for me to play the instruments. But Rockband 2 is due out soon and I can download some songs I don’t have from the internet which is sweet.

I bid on a second shift job at work this past week but I can only win it if nobody else has bidding rights. I actually like where I currently aim and like the job but I’m going to get laid off since it happens in my department every year in the winter. The big lay-off has been delayed but it will eventually hit and I could my job permanently in my current position. The job I bid on is ‘skilled’ labor which means someone would have to past a test to get into the room and them bump me out if they aren’t trained already like I am.

Okay, a 4 page blog in enough. I’m done.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Another webcomic posted at Drunkduck and July 4th

Blog 071108

I believe today is the start of the big day at work. If I heard correctly the company will start discussing what areas and how many people will be affected by the coming lay-off’s. I’m not sure when the regular work population will find out the details though. Rumors and incorrect information are bound to be rampant.

The 4th of July was fairly tame for me but it was my fault. I slept for under 4 hours after work before heading to me parents. I was fairly zombified when I got there. The chow was pretty good and the desserts better. My 20 year old niece brought over a new friend and she was fairly popular with us like she was a new toy or something.

Saturday I was fairly subdued too. It was rainy and I get all depressed lately when it rains. Instead of doing anything useful like I had planned I ended up vegging out to Youtube videos for around three hours. Then there was a nap and off to my parents again.

Sunday ended up being a good day. I finally felt refreshed and looked forward to playing Axis & Allies with friends for numerous hours. A&A can take hours upon hours to play and it did. I ended up being at my buddy’s for close to 10 hours. It was mostly a good time. I was getting strange looks bringing up old videos of 1970’s bands on Youtube when it wasn’t my turn. I mainly played ELO and then some Wings and even Donna Summer ‘I Feel Love’.

It was a good time overall but this kid was there that I find real annoying. I tried to give this guy a chance every time but he’s just annoying as hell. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s that he’s really stuck up in my opinion and he can be really rude. And everything no matter what seems to be all about him. At one point one of the videos I was playing ended and he switched to a new website. I didn’t catch this until I went back to the PC after my turn and went back to Youtube for more music videos. The guy got a rather whiny voice going on about something about saving that webpage. He was also whiny about not having played A&A for years but then got mad when we didn’t follow his plan to attack our enemies. Getting teamwork from him was more difficult than keeping oil prices down.

Later on there was one minor incident but it really pissed me off. Whiner was getting ready to leave and he needed to reach past me to get some stuff of his. So he asks me to move but apparently I wasn’t fast enough for him because as he reached forward he backhanded my arm with a little flip of his hand. Physically I wasn’t injured in the least and barely registered the touch to my arm. But the way he motioned and his quickness after his asking made it seem like I was a piece of garbage in his way. I found it really insulting. Then again, this is the same guy that took issue with my when we were playing Heroclix and I was calling the DC character Robin the ‘dickster’. He actually got hyped up about it telling me to stop calling him that and actually insisted on it. So just to piss him off I started calling Robin his ‘real’ name, Dick. I’m sure I said something like ‘I’m going to beat you with my dick.’

As usual for all of us, we bemoaned our dice rolling and shouted and cursed at one another. It’s our version of ‘fun’ believe it or not. And we always look forward to the next game of Axis & Allies.

I added my super-hero comic, JR’s Minutemen to Drunkduck. The Necropolis Chronicles on Drunkduck usually are double of the Minutemen but NC has been on the board about a month longer.

I was finally able to figure out how to make sitemeter.com work for my Drunkduck.com pages. For the first few days I was addicted to see how many and where people were reading from. I’ve forgotten which book had who for visitors but a lot of Europeans read my comics. People at least briefly viewed my comic from the following countries: The Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., Russia! Belgium, Puerto Rico and a couple of places I’m sure I’m forgetting. For awhile, viewers from Europe were greater than that of American readers. One American is literally the next town over. That one surprised me. But my free account with sitemeter doesn’t tell me who exactly is viewing my comics just city and control and some other details like time of day and such. Still, it’s all pretty darn cool!

Been a weird week for me. Monday was standard but I stayed and extra 4 hours on Tuesday morning. That’ll equal out what union dues were taken from this week’s paycheck. I got home and starting doing some drawing while in bed. With my drawing board on my gut as I reclined in bed to draw I kept fading out and dropping the board on my face! So I decided to go to sleep about an hour earlier than I usually do. I woke up 4 hours later and couldn’t get back to sleep! I finally got up and putz around and was able to fall back asleep for about 90 minutes before work. I needed it. I was so tired that I started crying with laughter over a fart video on Youtube. I mean I was bawling I was laughing so hard. During this a telemarketer called. I could barely speak as I was still laughing. She tried to do her speal but I couldn’t stop laughing. I somehow managed ‘not interested’ and hung up still laughing.

I learned a good lesson the other night. I put out my trash during the night to save myself some effort in the morning. I just leave the bags out there as I don’t have a big trash barrel like all the other neighbors. When I drove in I found the trash had been ripped open by some animal and some old pieces of a Tombstone pizza nibbled on. So I had to get another bag and transfer the trash over and reseal it. Joy.

My co-worker that I constantly bitch about has been on vacation this whole week. I haven’t gone to work made once during this vacation. I guess I’m just sick of her shit and enjoy work much better without her around. The lay-off’s will probably occur no later than the end of July so I may not have to deal with her much longer.

My reading kick is over. It ended with the end of the final Harry Potter book. I still have two Anita Blake novels to go with one being a Christmas Present but I haven’t had any desire to read before bed lately.

I had a crazy dream yesterday about going to see my friend Sara. I was touring/visiting her new house scared her lesbian girlfriend would attack me or at least be very angry with my presence there so I was really quiet. At one point I accidentally entered the master bedroom. I thought I was entering a hall built around a staircase. All of Sara’s girlfriends were sleeping in the bed fully covered except for the crowns of their heads by the blanket. I snuck pass as quietly as possible fearing discovery to my core.

In the mean time Sara was apparently readying the bathroom shower for my use as I had had a long road trip. Somehow I ended up in a full body latex/rubber suit and had to make a hasty exit to my car upon hearing the girlfriends stirring. I threw sort of a large, quilted shirt over my suit and fled in my car. I know I was driving around some very short roads before I found a more major road. I had to stop at a garage to have my car fixed overnight. That’s what I can recall from the dream. So of the details are now blurred and may be out of order, At least Sara was cool to me for all of the 10 seconds or les she appeared in the dream.

Heading to sleep in 30 minutes so I’m done here.