June 2003 Archives

We're taking a trip outside the office to complete the exposition phase of Comic Stripper. Soon the fun will start.

Molly and I went to one of Orange County's big-ass shopping centers to start building our bridal registry yesterday. I can't remember if it was Fashion Island or Southcoast Plaza. It used to be called Crystal Court, if that helps. Anyway, we seem to have unearthed a conspiracy to force young couples to register all over the place: the store that had the glasses we liked didn't have any dishes we could agree on, and the store where we found the perfect dishes had a pathetic selection of glasses. Villainy! We also tried to find one of them coffee makers that grinds your beans for you, but that proved to be a fool's errand.

We made a very depressing stop in Border's on the way out. There were just so many things to be sad about. To begin with, there was a talentless woman singing and playing the keyboard in the Border's cafe, with her toneless wannabe Aimee Mann chalkboard scratches broadcast throughout the store by an unforgiving sound system. Since I didn't have any interest in reading Ann Coulter's latest uninspired (and unsupported) rant against the Left or Hillary's revisionist account of the Clinton Era I decided to read Neuromancer, since it's one of my man John's favorite books and he has yet to steer me wrong. Being bad with names I couldn't remember who wrote it, so I asked a clerk. I had to spell "Neuromancer" five times for her. I thought about saying, "It's like 'necromancer,'" but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to help. I finally found a copy and a different clerk rang me up at $7.53. I handed him a five, three ones, and (gasp!) three pennies, which caused no end of confusion.

The other thing I noticed is that a great many books have a pair of women's legs on the cover. Movie posters tend to use breasts to sell the movies, but I guess breasts are too low-brow for books, so they go for legs. Sometimes they're bare, sometimes fishnetted, sometimes arranged in such a way that you'd be seeing panties if it weren't for some cleverly photoshopped shadows. As a leg man from way back I can't complain about the ubiquity of leg shots in bookstores, but all the same I'd like to see some more creativity from the people who are supposedly making their living by being creative.

But anyway.

"They struck down WHAT???"

You think that Affirmative Action ruling was important? You think that really accomplished anything?

Have a look at this. In your face, Scalia!

Comic Stripper 4, motherfuckers.

I'm going to try and find out when the entire L.A. City Council will be voting on the lapdance ban so I can go to the meeting and cause a ruckus. I'm hoping it's later rather than sooner, since once they vote on it one way or another this little project of mine will be hopelessly irrelevant.

Also, I went to the desert the other day and came back with a small bottle of oil, which will be worthless once we get to the core of Jupiter. No, wait. That's diamonds. Sorry. The oil smells just like oil. I also got a coffee table book about the scenic landscapes of Kern County.

That's all.

Yes, I'm vain. But I look scary as hell in this picture and you know it.

The third installment of Comic Stripper is up, and it's a big'n. I figured that as long as I'm going to drag out the exposition I may as well serve up double-helpings to keep things moving.

I'm also realizing how easy it was to just draw a strip every week that consisted of two people facing each other and making sarcastic comments. I think there are more poses in the fourth frame of this week's strip than there have been in the previous forty-four IFTL strips combined. And certainly a lot more boobies. I'm also pleased with the way the portrait on the right came out, but whether or not I remain pleased will depend on whether people can tell who it's supposed to be (hint: look to the breasts).

In other news, I saw two cats making out on Sunday. And it was pretty cool.

A new stripper strip will be up this evening. You know, in case you care.

I just read the tragic tale of Jonas Blank over at The Urban Legends Reference Pages, which should be especially stinging for those of us passed over for big fancy firm jobs this summer. Particularly disturbing is the tail-between-the-legs letter at the bottom of the page, something the likes of which I hope never to have to write. Again.

Also, go visit this bunny if you get the chance. If you shake hard enough he'll let go.

Bonus Cartoon Thursday!

I've decided to try something a little different. Since it's summer and I thus have a little more time on my hands, I'm going to turn Monday's stripper bit into a full-blown comic miniseries. It'll be like Rex Morgan, M.D., only funny, and with strippers.

Because I'll have to reveal the plot in a piecemeal fashion to keep things interesting, I'll be updating more than once a week. I'll aim for Monday and Thursday, but don't be surprised if I don't keep to that. I'm a bad person who doesn't keep promises. Just ask Jesus.

Anyway, I hope I've piqued your curiosity, and hopefully before the end of July I'll have fulfilled Paul's dream of five breasts in each panel.

You'll be hearing a lot more about the L.A. Lapdance Ban as the summer goes on, but for now I'd just like to point out the absurd juxtaposition of the L.A. City Council standing up for Puritanical morality while shit like this is happening just a few hundred miles away.

Honey, can we move to Nevada instead of Seattle?

This week's strip is rated PG-13, for mature themes, suggestive language, and a very large fist.

I meant to draw the customer in frames one and two in the guise of Paul, that great stripper magnet of Orange County, but in the process of drawing one lanky, curly-haired person I found myself drawing something that more closely resembled a certain oft-monikered know-it-all who's only slightly less fitting for the occasion. Think of it as two shout-outs in one.

But more importantly, as the (ahem) strip suggests, the L.A. City Council is chewing on a resolution that would prohibit strip club patrons from coming closer than six feet to strip club entertainers. Because that'll fix our schools. I'm hoping that the ban, should it pass (an identical ban failed when I was in high school), will lead to a Supreme Court hearing on whether lapdancing is a fundamental right. Because I think it is.

Really, a ban like this would just be a giant orgasm of unintended consequences. There's already underground prositution in strip clubs, so now there'll just be underground lapdances, too. And the escort industry will explode. Explode, I tell you.

Meli and I were enjoying some satellite television in lovely Redlands last night when we came across this summary for a movie whose title we can't remember. I'm inserting (ding!)s to represent points of interest within the TV Guide channel description.

[Title.] Chuck Norris (ding!). A Texas sheriff (ding!) tries kung fu (ding!) against an ax killer (ding! ding!) who, revived by doctors (ding!), cannot be killed (ding! ding! ding! ding! ding!).

Does anyone know the title? I think we need to rent this motherfucker.

I've seen a lot of gems in the comments sections of Rate My Kitten. Quite a few of them have sent my typin' finger to twitchin', but I always resisted making a post. But now, I feel the need to speak out. Maybe it's the work-related delirium, but this:

"farofa: Yummy!!!!!!Flat cat is delicable!!! New York City loves flat Cat!!!

is a little more than I can take. The comment was made in reference to this contented-looking fellow.

First off, I have no idea what farofa could possibly be trying to say with the word "delicable." I could speculate but I'm sure I'd just end up nullifying my argument with my own spelling errors.

But more importantly, what gives farofa the authority to speak for New York City? Has she been delegated the Official Cat Lover of NYC? Who has vested her with this power, and why? Until I find out, I'm going to start doing that. But I'm going to start speaking on behalf of cities I have no connection to whatsoever. "Boy, this is a great steak. Des Moines loves this steak." "Have you seen X-Men 2? New Brunswick thought it was great." "Lake Forest has a thing or two to say about that shirt you're wearing, Bob."

Ohhhh, my God...

It used to be that when you were signed into Yahoo! Mail and you wanted to sign as someone else, you clicked "Sign Out," then "Sign in as a different user," then "Return to Yahoo! Mail," then got the Sign in screen. This was ridiculous, since "Sign in as a different user" clearly manifests intent to get to the Sign in screen, and placing that extra step was a needless inconvenience. And as someone with multiple Yahoo! identities I waited for the day when some Yahoo! programmer would figure that out and streamline the operation.

At some point within the last few hours, Yahoo! added a FOURTH link to the process. Now there's a whole nother screen that says "You have signed out of the Yahoo! network" with an additional "Return to Yahoo! Mail" link. So now I have to tell it TWICE that I want to return to Yahoo! Mail ANNNNND explain that I do, indeed, want to sign in as a different user. Why are they making it so difficult to troll craigslist as multiple people and screw with people? God horsing damn it!

Here's a new strip, breaking open the sensitive area of projectile eyelashes when no one else dares. To.

In other news, Molly and I have decided to fill the void left in our joint lives by the lack of TV getting through as many James Bond movies as we can this summer. So far we've watched Die Another Day with the help of Steve, The World is Not Enough with the help of the VCR, and Thunderball, with the help of neither thunder nor balls. In my research I've discovered that George Lazenby really gets a raw deal by James Bond fans. Everybody makes a big deal about how he was only in one James Bond movie, and therefore not nearly as legit as the other James Bonds. What they fail to mention is that Timothy Dalton was only in two J.B. movies, and nobody gives him any business*. Sure, OHMSS tanked, but so did License to Kill. And, rumor has it that they wanted Pierce Brosnan to take over as early as The Living Daylights, so Timothy Dalton was a second choice to begin with.

So, in conclusion, Lazenby ended up doing French porn. But Timothy Dalton was in a Masterpiece Theater version of Jane Fucking Eyre, for crumb's sake.

* The bad kind of business, like the time Sean wrote the sketch comedy send-up of my relationship with my crazy roommate.

The AFI came out with their list of 100 greatest movie heroes and villains list today. Does anyone know if the AFI actually does anything besides coming up with obnoxious and irrelevant lists? Are they publically funded? Could we look into this? Apparently the greatest movie hero of all time is Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. First of all, Atticus isn't a movie hero. He's a literary hero. Has anyone born after 1975 actually *seen* To Kill a Mockingbird apart from watching it in your eighth grade English class after reading the book? How about Robert Duvall as Boo Radley? There's a hero for you.

I hate these lists more than I can tell you. I remember a few years ago when they came out with their so-called 100 Best Comedies list. The top two (Some Like it Hot and Tootsie) derived their humor entirely from putting a man in a dress. Mrs. Doubtfire also made the list. Notably absent were truly innovative comedies like Better Off Dead and Rushmore, along with solid gold slapstick like Billy Madison for that matter. So what does this tell use about the AFI? "Bathroom jokes and teen angst, ah, that's too obvious. But a guy in drag? Now that's comedy. Here, watch this scene. Jack Lemmon has trouble walking in heels. Look at him stumble! Now he knows what it feels like, eh, ladies?"

I hate living in the age of Top 100s. My idea of Hell is an endless marathon of VH1 Top 100 shows, hosted by last month's celebrities with an afternoon to kill before their weekly Saturday night cocaine bender. I don't know how many 100s of Sexiest Fill-in-the-blanks I've sat through, each one filled with that closet case from Rolling Stone telling us that "confidence, yeah, that's what's really sexy." And the 50th sexiest Female Singer with Both Paternal Grandparents Still Living is... Jill Sobule! And here's that closet case from Rolling Stone to tell us why. "Oh, she's just so confident. People will tell you that you have to be on the cover of Glamour to be sexy, but confidence is what really makes you sexy. Remember when she sang about kissing a girl? Talk about balls. And then she had the confidence to not actually kiss any girls in the video. Really kept us guessing, didn't she? Con-fi-dence."

"Coming up after the break," says Denise Richards reading woodenly from a cue card, "we'll hit 49th on our profoundly important list, and Brad Light from Spin Magazine will tell us how she exudes confidence. Don't go away!"

We'll have to add exploding water balloons full of pig's blood to the list of things I can't draw. Oh, well. I'm learning.

My first week at the summer job has drawn to a close. There was a bomb scare on the first day, but not in our building. The police found a suspicious package, blocked off the intersection of Westwood and Wilshire, and apparently made some arrests. Meanwhile the other interns and I were loitering around the lobby before being evacuated to a nearby Denny's parking lot. Very exciting. Two days later there was another bomb scare, but only one building was evacuated and no streets were blocked off. So now, of the four buildings at the intersection, two have been threatened with explosives, and my building has yet to get its turn.

But I have my own office! Woo! Bears! It has my name on it and everything. It's on the tenth floor and affords me an opportunity to stare down blouses from on high. Fortunately for my productivity and the breasts of Westwood my desk faces away from the street, so I can only make use of the window on widely spaced work breaks. If I ever come back for a permanent position I'm hoping to get an office overlooking the cemetery.