SB 25 and Kites in Denver

Here is a sketch of some of my favs from Heroes. I am ball-bouncingly happy that said show is back on the air. Waiting a week was bad enough, but almost two months? Piss off, NBC.

In other news, I had an awfully good time in Denver. Thanks to all of you who made my stay as awesome as it was. I got to see some new Friends like Margi and Lisa and old friends like Terrence ( I used to call him "Terry", but that has since been disallowed.) and Dave.

The Drive with Mr. Joey was the funnest part. Back in the day, Joey and I would Road trip all the time. At least once a summer, usually more because back then we had shit jobs and no responsibility and could take off for a few weeks without our personal realities crumbling. We get along well in the car and have almost the exact same taste in music and snack foods. The trip took less time than I figured, but since we outfitted his 97 Civic for Hyperspace, it's got a little more pick-up off the line.

We stayed again at the Empty Condo of the Mom which, much like the Model Home in Arrested Development, is the default place to crash for my family. No one has actually lived there for years, but if one of us is visiting from out of town, too drunk to drive back to the sub-urbs, just broke up with significant other and got or needs to bring a hooker somewhere discreet, then the Condo is the place to go. My Brother and his wife were waiting for us there Friday night and it was good to see them because I hadn't seen my brother in a few years. They spent the majority of the weekend at StarFest and had a good time. My mom had stocked the Condo with food and whatnot, so we made a big breakfast each morning since that was the only time we knew we'd all be in the same room together.

I went to Sputknik, Gabor's and The Skylark (not all in the same night), And saw a too many people to mention by name and had a lot of fun, only a small portion of which involved porn.

Sunday Emily decided we should all fly kites. so that's what we did.

See? I tell no lies:

This was the first time I came back to Denver where two things happened, or rather didn't happen. 1 - once we parked the car, we didn't touch it again till we left. Which is probably because we 2 - never left the hill. We walked everywhere. I never went past Broadway, Colfax, Cheesman Park or 6th, with the exception of the bar. I usually make it into LoDo at least once, but not this time. Weird.

I'm back in Stilly now, and even though I had a great time, I was ready to see the Wife and the Shorty (Sgt. Shorty now).

Joey made his way back to Austin without incident, and I was sad to see him go. We really need to make it down there for a visit. He and Laura are up on us like 3 visits now.

That is all.

-JP

SB 24

Um... I have no way to explain the above pic. I will say that I have suspected for a long time that my brain doesn't work right. Too much happy time in high school.

The Good:

-I and Joey V are leaving for Denver in about 24 hours. I hope to be knee deep in friends and whiskey once I get there. Make that happen.

-Jackson has figured out that if he uses his little wagon full o' toys and gets a running start, he can knock over the baby gate. He then runs into the back part of the house yelling the baby equivalent of "FREEDOM!"

-I'm totally excited to see Hot Fuzz. Anybody in Denver want to go see that with me?

The Bad:

-Cody will not be joining us on the D-Town trip. He says that all the rain has hampered is earning ability for the last few weeks. I guess I can see that, but he's still a weenie.

-TODD Goldman, the maker of David and Goliath tees, has been caught red handed ripping off a web comics creator. This story is all over the interwebs, thanks to a Juxtapoz article, and hopefully Todd Goldman will burn in hell for it, or maybe just be put out of business. There is now a whole site devoted to his obvious rip-offs.

The Ugly:

-April is indeed the cruelest month. With the exception of my good friend Aaron Taylor having his birthday in April, the month pretty much sucks. OKC, Columbine, This Virginia Tech thing, That plane crash that killed all those OSU basketball players. The Bees getting killed by cell phones. Kurt Vonnegut dieing. My horrendous allergies that smack me around all month long with a bigger hammer than usual. Piss off, April.

-Speaking of the VT shooting. I hate to sound rude of insensitive, but having been in Denver during the Columbine shooting, and only a few years removed from high school I have to get this off my chest. Here's what will happen: There will be a massive outpouring of concern and solidarity, rightly so. Then the extremes will come out of the wood work. The Right will yap about more security, The Left will yap about gun control. Not realizing that the answer is somewhere in between, they will not waver their extreme points, and nothing will get done. It's what happens every time there is a school shooting, and obviously it hasn't worked.

Also, I have to say that I don't like the camera hogs. People who had nothing to do with the incident or any of the people involved, but end up on the news four times a day. Back in high school, a kid got killed huffing the crap that they put in fire extinguishers. When news hit the school, there were these kids who would sit in the hall crying and asking why him, and all that, and none of them knew him, They just wanted attention. I've always hated that. It happened at Columbine, and it happens whenever there is a major tragedy. Those people don't need your shit. What does that get you? 5 seconds on TV and that's it. Your false sincerity blows.

So, um... Yeah. That was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that.

have a nice day.

-JP

Thought dump 2

Well, after public outcry from my last post, I have decided to link to the jack pose.

Click at your own risk.

Thought dump:

I am going to be in Denver over the weekend of the 22nd, so adjust your plans accordingly.

So Nick Cave has a new band. Well, not a new band, but an old band with a new sound. A sound so different, they decided to change the name. Grinderman is their name and I have to say that this description pretty well sums them up: "Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better." The album is good and entertaining in the way that your drunk, racist uncle is. You'll ignore the intolerance because his stories are so fucking awesome.

I love my DVR. I really don't watch live TV anymore. Having a shorty makes that cumbersome anyway. Most of the time, I'd rather spend the 3 hours a day I really get to see him playing with blocks and tonka toys on the floor that watching Boston Legal anyway, so I just record everything I might want to watch and wait for him to go to bed. The last week or so, Ive been really into a book anyway, so once I'm done with that I'll just stay up some night watching oodles of cheesy sci-fi till 2AM and be in a crabby mood the next day when I hit the message boards.

I lent Jen my ipod so she could take it on her business trip this week. I'm using a little flash based job that I won in some raffle here at work a while back. It won't work with itunes, but I don't need a music subscription service to use it, just drag and drop from my music files. That's pretty handy. I hate the interface, but the sound is really really good. I'm surprised. It is super tiny, too. I like that.

I've been listening to Kevin Smith's podcasts lately. They are incredibly entertaining. Kevin has no censor button on his brain so the sickest shit comes out of there in a very matter-of-fact kind of way. And he curses more than anybody I've ever even heard of. Fun stuff, but not safe for listening in groups. Keep it in the earbuds.

I wonder why spring is being such a bastard. Does he really put that much credence to what that stupid groundhog dictates?
"Six more weeks!" says the groundhog.
"You know what," says Spring, "Fuck you."

-JP

SB 23 - Raincoat guy

Hey! a new sketch! About time, Powers.

Okay so I have some random thoughts that won't leave my head till I write them down:

-I love how easy it is to get music on the intertubes these days, either legally or otherwise. I also love that I have a vast network of friends who are also music lovers, who can dupe things and mail them to me. The music is so assessable now that one barely has to think about it. One hears a song they like, and just goes over to the computer and gets it. No more wandering into Wax Trax and thinking "what the fuck did I come in here for?". There are a few downfalls, though. One is the band not getting as much money, but with the exception of Megadeth, I truly believe that this is propaganda perpetuated by the major record labels and that the artists (at least the ones who are in it for more than money) would want as many people as possible to hear their music regardless of how they obtained it. The second, and the one I have only recently realized is the loss of album art. Sure, itunes has that tiny 2 inch square in the lower right corner that gets displayed on your ipod (if you are lucky enough to have one that allows this, like I don't), but most of my downloads are off the torrents, and are bare bones. I've been listening to !!! for weeks now, and I only saw the cover of the album last week while in the music store. I feel that an album is an all senses kind of thing, or at least it should be, and I'm missing out on something here. I need to look into that.

-I came late to the party for a wonderful British show called Life On Mars. It is wonderful. Well thought out and beautifully acted. I don't know when BBCAM will start running it again, but catch it when it does. I read somewhere that David E. Kelly was making an American version for ABC, but I still can't figure out why the networks insist on remaking great shows and not just playing the original. The exception being The Office, which has managed to out shine it's predecessor somehow.

-Guys who insist on backing into their driveways or into a parking spot bug the shit out of me. It seems to take way longer to shimmy into the spot backwards than it would to just pull the fuck in. Do these guys think a brawl is going start in the Satrbucks, and they might need to get out in a hurry? Seem weird.

-They kicked off Sarah last night on America's Next Top Model. Bastards. I've been watching this show over my wife's shoulder for years, and Sarah was the first one that I really liked as a model and as a person. Usually those things don't mesh, but Sarah was smart and cute, and didn't go all bitchy all the time. She was there as a definite career step, and not because somebody told her she was pretty once and wanted to be on TV. She'll do well outside the show, though. She has enough drive.

-According to an entry in BoingBoing, you can now have your cremated ashed made into pencils. Live on through other people's sketches. I actually think that's really cool. You heard it here first: in the absence of a living will, that is what I would like to have done to me when I die.

-Jackson started doing this thing in the bath, where he stands up, rests his right hand on the edge of the tub, crosses his legs in front of him, and places the other hand gingerly on his hip in what can only be described as a modelling pose, ala Mr. Peanut. He then leers at you with a coy little smile, as it to say "hello, ladies." It is the funniest thing I have ever seen a toddler do. I shall try to capture this on camera, but he only does it in the bath, and I don't know the laws regarding posting a pic of a naked toddler in a "come hither" pose.

Okay. That's it. Brain emptied. Thanks for playing along.

-JP

Kiev

I think there is a lot of good street art out there. I just don't think most of it is in America. Last night, The Fam and I got stuck at train crossing, and were commenting about how all the graffiti on the train cars ammounted to a variation of "Joe was here". Don't get me wrong, I have a high respect for art in any form, and if it weren't for street art, we wouldn't have Basquiat or Keith Harring or several other very influentual artists.

But this stuff* -->

Just awesome. It's from The Ukraine, and I can't read it. But it looks really cool, so I don't care. I wish more Americans would crank it up a notch like these guys did.

Another cool artist I found between trolling the message boards and actually working was Ashley Wood. She combines two of my favorite things: Robots and Pin-up girls. Cool stuff.

The 3rd series of Doctor Who hit England on Saturday, and then hit the torrents a few hours later. It was really good. The new companion will do just nicely.

In other news:

For those of you who know my brother Jefferson, this will be amusing. He's part of a podcast now, over at SuperHeroCinema.com. He and two other guys yap about movies and other media that is adapted from comics somehow. I have a hard time listening sometimes, because I know his voice so well. I keep wanting to interject. They geek out on all kinds of stuff, and I don't get to do that very often anymore, so I listen intently every week.

Those podcasts are all the rage now. I can't figure out if I like them or not. A lot of them are fun and amusing like the ones from the Onion, but others are like listening in on a conversation that you can't be a part of. Kevin Smith's is like that. Why do I want to listen to two guys yammer on like that? Answer: I really don't. I get the same feeling I get when eavesdropping on the neighbors when they are fighting or screwing. I usually keep listening in either case, because I am gossipy deviant.

Jackson is nearing 2. My how time flies. He's learning a lot of words really fast, which means I have to watch my mouth a lot more.** He is also starting to push a few boundaries. In that, I mean he can be a total pain in the ass from time to time. My friend Brian has a good theory on why that is, and I tend to agree. I now have the age-old parental question of weather to give in for the sake of quietness and risk spoilage, or don't react, and risk deep-seeded daddy issues later in life like I have.*** I usually go about 50 -50 to cover the spread.

-JP

*From Drawn!

** Like I ever did before.

***And everybody else in the world.