In which I have a new pic.

Finally, a new page of NGV5 is up! enjoy.

In other news: Looks like Iran started a war. Idiots.

So, a few weeks ago, Jackson went through a little phase where he was loving to take his pants off. That's cool. We all do that. I still do that. He was at the baby sitter's, where she had a heckova time getting him to keep the drawers up. She's pull them up, he'd run around the corner and laughing the whole time, pull 'em off again. At some point, she realized that she hadn't seen or heard him for a while, and found him between the couch and the coffee table.

The result, here.

As I said in the previous post, I am addicted to Lego Star Wars. Lego just announced that they are making a new game based on Lego Batman. I peed a little in my pants when I heard that.

Equally exciting is this:

This is a test shot from the movie version of Watchmen, which Zach Snyder of 300 and Dawn Of The Dead fame has taken on as his next project. There may be another Zombie movie first, and if I get that too, I can happily wait for Watchmen. I am becoming a big fan of Snyder. He does good work, and he has a good bead on how movies work both as a business and as art. He stated in an interview, that he is treating the book as literature, not wanting to update it to fit into today's political climate, ala V for Vendetta. His point is that if you were to make a movie based on Moby Dick, you wouldn't try to set it in a contemporary time frame*, and I have to respect that. Good for Zach. He also stated that he wants to keep it as true to the comic as possible, making it most likely R rated and 3 hours long, and after seeing how accurate 300 was, I believe he can do it. Watchmen is the single most important Comic ever produced, and those of you fan boys that just had The Dark Knight Returns pop into your head can fuck right off.**

Also: I didn't get a job I was going for. I'm a little disappointed, but it was a long shot anyway, so no harm done. Jen and I are looking to make some sort of major change, though. We basically know what, we just need to figure out how to proceed. More on that later.

I have nothing else to report.

Have a nice day.

-JP

*save that for Shakespeare.

** Still one of my Faves, but couldn't have happened without Watchmen.

Oh, those silly comics...

You all should check out Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Panels from YesButNoButYes. Good stuff. Like this gem -->

Of course this guy has been at it for a while now.

Speaking of comics: Back in the day, as it were, I was a big fan of all the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean Sandman stuff that was counter-culturally popular in the early '90s. After a while, though, I lost interest in Gaiman and that whole gothy-comics thing. I thought Gaiman's writing was going down hill, and the majority of similarly themed comics weren't very good. When Sandman ended, I wasn't too upset, and I picked up The Dreaming for a while, but soon lost interest. Gaiman edited a collection of short stories that I thought were pandering and dumb, so I pretty much gave up on him. McKean was a similar story. He sort of got in a rut, and most of his art looked so similar that I couldn't tell one piece from another for a while.

About a year ago, somebody sent me a link to his blog, which I have been reading off and on ever since. I was surprised to find out that he'd forsaken the gloomy streets of London for a family life in Minnesota. People I respect were telling me that his novels were really good, and I did enjoy Good Omens, but that was because it is really witty and funny which I assumed was the Terry Pratchett influence.

So a few weeks ago, at the urging of my curiosity, I rented Mirrormask, the movie that McKean and Gaiman made together. I hadn't heard of them collaborating on anything very big for a while, so I thought I'd check it out. It's a bit of an Alice in Wonderland rip off, but It looks gorgeous, and was way better than I thought it would be.

So then I decided I'd give in, and I picked up American Gods, used, with a gift card. I have to sat that I am impressed. All the stuff I used to love about his writing is in there with out all the gothy trappings he fell into way back when. I'm only about half way through it, due to my obsession with Lego Star Wars, but so far, I likie. The boys redeemed themselves.

I am currently listening to The Violent Femmes first and best Album. Everybody go dig that album out and listen to it very loudly right now. You won't be sorry. I have memories flooding back of lazy high school afternoons driving around wasting time till dinner.

-JP

In which I have little to say.

Well, there have been some serious changes at my work. Some shuffling and some re-organizing. Suffice it to say that I have turned my thoughts toward change. I have been feeling for a while that I may want to leave Stilly. I like it here, but I feel I may be able to make a better life for my family if I get back to a bigger city. Which city and with what opportunities said city would offer are the questions. Things seem to be pointing me back to Tulsa, at least in the short term. We shall see. The weird thing is that I've actually been hella busy at work, hence no sketches or comics for a while.
In other news:
Basketball has robbed me of new Heroes episodes, so to fill my geek quota, I have to survive on sporadic Smallville eps and whatever Sci-fi has to offer.
The new Robin Hood series on BBC America is better and worse than I thought it would be, so I keep tuning in and can't really figure out why. The acting is mostly bad, but the writing is pretty good. It suffers from trying to distance itself from the version the one the Herc and Xena people did by fully embracing the Kevin Costner version. Of course they make everybody younger and better looking, in keeping with what feudal English peasants historically looked like. Who knew oral care was so much better during the Crusades?
BBCAM really needs to re run The Eleventh Hour. That show is really good. Starring Captain Picard and Maggie from Extras, they both play against type as crime investigators. Picard uses chemistry to save the day!
Also, Live Forever is a really well done documentary on the whole Brit Pop phenomenon back in the '90s. If you were into that at all back then, Like I was, you should take a look.
The FX show The Riches got off to a promising start. A family of con artist-gypsies take over the lives of a family killed in a car wreck. Good stuff. It was really weird to see Eddie Izzard a) without make up, and b) acting so well. He does a really good job. And I didn't want to punch Minnie Driver in the face*, so she's getting better.
Jackson is learning more words every day, and it is awesome to see his cognitive abilities grow. He's going to be some sort of evil genius when he grows up. A mad scientist perhaps. I should start looking for castles atop creepy mountains for him to live in.
Why is the spring time so filled with reality shows? For the most part, I don't like them, a few here and there aside (and none of those are on the air anymore) I just don't see the appeal. Though most reality show watchers would wonder why I waste my time with cheesy sci-fi.
The new Arcade Fire and !!! (chk chk chk) are both decient. !!! is fun because you think it's dance music until you realize they are all actually playing real instruments.
I think That's all I got. Take care.

-JP

*though that jaw would probably break my fist.

One of my favorite things..

Is when white christian conservatives bitch about being discriminated against. I love it for it sheer absurdity, kinda like a mime. Or when you catch dogs humping. They're just doing what's in their nature, but it sure is funny.
NPR ran a story today about Conservapedia, the conservative's answer to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anybody can edit. I guess they had a problem with "anybody". That could mean that somebody who wasn't a white christian conservative, and they can't have that. That would undermine Jesus' teachings of love and tolerance. The main page touts: A conservative encyclopedia you can trust. Yeah, right.
So, um... yeah. Sorry I haven't written in a while. There's been some funky-funky at my work lately, so I've been a little pre-occupied. I can't really go into it, because they have eyes. and cameras. Not really. It would just be wildly inappropriate.
Other than that, not much going on. I saw 300, and loved it. It was like watching a giant live action video game. Miller's dialogue actually works in such a setting.
So. That's it. Go away.

SB 22 - Fish

Here is a fish. And it went where ever I did go.
Jackson got a little fishy for Christmas from his aunt Grace that lives on our counter now. In a little bowl. Jackson likes it. Every once in a while, he points at it, and says "shi-shi!"
Fish are weird. I've had a lot of them in the past, the coolest being a Black Moor named Doctor Fishopolis that lived eight years. Fish don't have eye lids, so when they die, I never really believe it because they're still looking at me. I usually have to poke them once or twice to make sure. (why is it that whenever we come across something dead, our first instinct is to poke it? Usually with a stick.)
Everybody in the Powers household was sick over the last week or so. A nasty "comin' outa both ends" kind of sick. The kind where you don't eat anything for 3 days, then when you finally feel better, food still sounds disgusting. All you want to do is lie in bed. Or better yet, you wish there was some way to move the bed and the TV into the bathroom so you don't have to scamper as far. Jack got it first, then me, and finally Jenn, the day before she had to go to Dallas for some training class. In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't all get it at once, as there are not enough bathrooms in our house.
Now we're all better, we all have our appetites back, and even though the ordeal left me 8 pounds lighter, I'm glad food sounds good again.

-JP