MOVING IS TERRIBLE.

I'm just gonna tell my story, with no care in how whiny it is, or if it's entertaining at all. This is venting. Deal with it.

If you've been reading along, you know my move from Savannah to Virginia has been a mess. My original move was ruined when the buddy who had agreed to help me instead disappeared. (He's back now, and working to rectify the situation.) That meant I had to leave my apartment - and, most importantly, my studio equipment - in Savannah, while I drove to VA.

This past weekend was my only opportunity to get it back.  Labor Day traffic be damned, I set off for Savannah with the dude who lives in my basement (Mover2) and a goal of finally ending that chapter of my life.

The trip didn't start well. Even with Mover2 getting off work a bit early, we had to drive in Friday evening, holiday traffic. Griping ensued. At least it gave us some conversation topics. (You're note that Mover2 is not referred to as a "buddy.") We ate a Bojangles for the first time. It was weird, and the food was not worth the wait. You suck, Bojangles. We did have lots of friendly convos with good ol' country boys while waiting for the food, though.

We got in at 11:30, and took a walk around town before bed. Mover2 gave me a running commentary of how he would like to violate every woman he saw, so that was nice. Bedtime. We had to get up at 7 to retrieve our truck from Budget.

The next morning, we were optimistic. We heading over to Budget when it opened to see if we could get the truck early.  In the lot outside the Budget office, we saw a guy angrily screaming at his phone. Uh oh.

Dude behind the Budget counter took me name, typed it in, stared at the computer and shook his head. "We don't have your truck."

What.

I had the email. I had the conformation number. I had the right location. Dude told me there was no record of me. He gave me a number to call.  The number told me, through a recording, (paraphrased) "the in-store representative you were working with will handle it," and hung up on me. I went back inside. The dude didn't even look at me. He sat at the counter, slowly filing papers, hoping I would go away. Mover2 lost his cool and started shouting loud enough that we couldn't be ignored. Counter dude, never changing his expressions, said there was nothing he could do.

That's when the chick beside him actually looked up our information, and told us my reservation WAS there, but it had been CANCELLED.  The heck? Zombie counter dude shrugged, and said the company overbooked, so they just cancelled a bunch of reservations. Didn't I get a call or message about it? NO. No I did not.

So now we had no truck and panic was setting in. We found a nearby location for Uhaul and went to them. The difference between the two companies was night and day.  The Uhaul staff was smart, informed, engaging and very helpful.  Problem is, we weren't the only people screwed over by Budget.  At 8:30am, we were the third crew to come begging, and any spare trucks were gone.  (Mover2 swears the angry guy from the Budget lot got the last one, but I have no visual confirmation.) We got an 800 number to call, and not only did a real person immediately pick up, but he made an effort to search the area for any spare truck they had. He found two, one at the size we needed!  But there was no guarantee yet. These trucks were owned by independent companies, so confirmation was needed. I was told it would take an hour.

I went to get Mover2, who was ranting at everyone about Budget, and we asked the Uhaul manager for advice. She kindly suggested we leave (someone might have been making a scene) and get breakfast while we waited. Her suggestions: IHOP and Golden Corral. Oh, Georgia.

IHOP *was* close, so we went there. The staff was very nice and attentive. The food was IHOP. We picked at our hash browns when the phone rang. We had a truck! It was a much-larger truck than needed, BUT IT WAS A TRUCK! Only problem was that it was 40 minutes away.  Well, not much we could do there. I thanked the Uhaul person, wrote down the information, and called the confirmation number on the subsequent text message Uhaul sent me. (A great feature, by the way.)

The truck owner answered the call, and was completely baffled. In the time it took for my reservation to be processed and move through the system, someone had come into their office and rented the truck. My notification came in during our conversation, and there was nothing I could do about the double booking.  The owner told me he was renting it out for the day, so we could stop by at 5pm and pick it up for our trip.  We obviously weren't thrilled with that, but we told him to keep my name on the book.  If that was the only option, we were taking it.

Back to Uhaul's office! The manager was still lovely, took down my information and said she'd call if there were any cancellations. Nothing left to do, we hopped in the car to drive back to my apartment.

The phone rings.  "Hey, this is Budget. Are you ever gonna pick up your truck?"

WHAT!?

"Your truck was transferred to the Richmond Hill location. Didn't someone tell you about it?"

No. No that was definitely not what we were told.  Good lord. I begged the guy to hold onto the truck, promising we'd be there as soon as possible. Swung by the apartment to grab the GPS, typed in the address and we were on our way.  Turns out it's a half-hour away, BUT WHO CARES WE HAD A TRUCK.

This was new Budget center, stuck at the edge of an impound lot at the back of the field and only a tiny, barely visible sign to point out it existed. It was surrounded by puddles of stagnant water, and thus full of swarms of hungry insects. The office was a run-down shack with some very questionable choices with the electronics. (Dripping AC unit above the power strip? What could go wrong?)

The manager wanted to hurry up the checkout, as he ate something that didn't agree with him and he was about to be sick.  That was the computer system's cue to start throwing out error messages. Over and over. He would click. Computer would throw a fit. He would say he's about to vomit. I slid the trash can over to him and asked him to keep going.

After a long call with Budget tech support, the reservation went through.  I finally paid, and the manager sprinted off to vomit. We got the truck inspected and FINALLY got to drive it off.  Over 5 hours had passed since our scheduled pick-up time.  We were frustrated, angry and ready to drive back to the first Budget center and punch zombie dude in his expressionless face.

Let me make this clear:  While we ended up using Budget, it will never happen again. Uhaul costs more, but they are reliable, helpful and competent. I will always take that over that day of hell. Budget had a failure at every step, from the office people, to the computer system to a useless help network. (Which I had also dealt with during the LAST move, but I didn't know if Budget had failed then, or original moving buddy.)

Those five hours lost were brutal, though, as it meant we *had* to stay another night in Savannah. I like Savannah, but all my friends were out of town and I had a loud, whiny sleazeball I had to take everywhere. We loaded the truck much faster than I'd have preferred, so we had a full evening to kill. At least we agreed to leave well before sunrise in the morning. Early bed = less conversational pain! My twitter follows know a lot more about what I'm implying here. Basically, don't ask that dude about his views on women.

We had a great dinner, followed by a long and excruciating walk.  Let me be clear: I adore walking around Savannah. Aside from my friends, it's what I will miss the most. What I don't like is the horrific running commentary I got.

Next morning we woke up real early, loaded the last of the stuff into my car, dropped off the apartment keys and left. The drive was smooth and uneventual. The arrival was move fun from Mover2, who ranted to me about how evil Budget was for restricting their trucks to a 75mph top speed.  Yes, dude, rant to me about not being able to drive recklessly with a truck full of MY STUFF. We knew going into this that he would be a pain, but I was desperate and he owes my family an irreparable debt. Sometimes you have to go with the due who can't say no, even though everything else he says will be awful.

Forgive the griping, but I felt the need to share. I left out a lot of details, such as discovering the gas station store was also the main liquor store of the area, and the 1970's New York locksmith experience, but I'm tired and this is long enough.

The happy ending is that I'm typing this in my newly set up studio, and it's kinda awesome! (For now... I see wifi issues on the horizon, but I'm gonna rely on the cable box and ignore that.)

I now turn back to drawing tomorrow's comic. First new comic drawn in a while. WILL I REMEMBER WHAT EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE?

The heart attack piece

This one came into existence kicking and screaming. What you see here is actually attempt number three.  Even the scanner fought me, as it decided to pull that trick where every light yellow comes out as pale blue. I did my best to correct that, but I can only do so much.  The *actual* blue isn't nearly as choppy as the scan makes it out to be either. The whole piece is actually darker in real life, which makes it doubly frustrating that the scanner ate it anyway.  The aforementioned white ink technique was attempted on a sample page, but the ink came out too uneven to be useful.  I am artistically worn out.  Anyway, enjoy the second piece in the belly dancer series.

There's no time for swirly colors!

I have a comic to do, dammit! Oh, whatevs. THE ARTIST'S SOUL MUST BE SATISFIED!

I tried a new trick with this painting: I turned to twitter for inspiration! Twitter IGNORED MY PLEAS! Go to hell, everyone on twitter! New painting idea: Everyone on Twitter sucks! I'm all alone in a vast uncaring universe because people are too infatuated with themselves to lend a hand! Wait, that's stupid and cliche. New new painting idea: I'm paranoid and whiny because I don't get enough attention. All I can do is thrive on my own and make everyone else look the fool for not acknowledging my supremely obvious awesomeness! Vengeance shall be mine!

Well. vengeance shall be mine in a bit. A good friend is coming to visit this weekend and that means I need to get the comic far enough ahead that I don't have to worry about it. That means I have to get my Sunday strip knocked out TODAY. Ack! At least it should be relatively simple. It's only three panels! Bonus: It contains a joke I've been trying to fit in for over a year! Yay!

The bad, the ugly and the good

How NOT to take a negative review: A Chrispy Story.

I woke up today to find out WebcomicZ had posted a scathing guest review of my strip. It attacked pretty much everything, from the writing to the characters to the whole concept, and often did so in rather impolite ways. Now, I can take some negative - as a person who is generally unfiltered, I'd be a hypocrite if I had thin skin - but some of that review really threw me off. Dude said my naming sucked because I didn't give my fox character a fox-ish last name! A pingo is a mound of dirt and ice in the polar regions. Autumn was formerly a genius in public school who rose above the others and took a cold view towards the flatness around her. So, yeah, totally not apt at all. I think I like that name a bit more than Foxett McFoxfox. He also said giving my main character the last name of Oven was stupid because he wasn't even a chef. One of Bud Oven's characteristics is that, yes, he's an excellent chef. There was an entire intro arc written around how he got his name!

So, bleary-eyed, I went and did something stupid. I knew WebcomicZ had been looking to run a negative review - and that this was the first review to go up since then - and I expressed that I was shocked to be the one targeted. (I know, I know. Not thinking.) I followed it up by saying I reacted in shock and that the dude was entitled to his opinion - but I did this all publicly on Twitter. In stepped some defenders - whose points were all entirely valid, by the way - and suddenly I've caused an incident by complaining. It was a terrible way to react, and the regret level rose when WebcomicZ CHANGED THE REVIEW to something much shorter. The short review cut out all the pettiness and was more direct in why he didn't like it. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the points are fairly justifiable, but the way that review came about left a bad taste in my mouth. WebcomicZ claims he changed it because the author requested it, not knowing of the twitter debacle. Either way, the original is still up there if you check out Precocious' page on WebcomicZ, so I don't feel AS BAD that it was bumped. So now I've been slammed AND I feel horribly guilty about it. Way to go, me!

Some of the things leftover in the review are apt criticisms of Precocious. Having so many characters does break the rules, and I have to be careful in balancing them. Basing my humor on story and character requires the reader to play along and catch up. (This reviewer explicitly said he had no interest in doing that, which would explain the derision. He wasn't playing by my rules and I wasn't writing to his preconceptions.) My love of complexity can be isolating, and I still haven't learn the lessons of keeping it short term. This, however, is something I can control. It's my bad for no doing so.

Other quibbles are standard rookie fare. Precocious is only 6 months old, and sometimes that shows. I was too verbose in the beginning (and certainly still can be) and my writing isn't always crisp. Unfortunately, this is something I've learned only comes with time. You have to train yourself to *think* in comic form, and it's a slow process. He did hit upon a contradiction between my style and format. Story telling is normally reserved for eternal-punchline Mary Worth and not for humor strips, but I go against the grain. Depending on who you are, it's good or bad. I do it because in the webcomic format I can point readers to the start of a story - and the full archive is right there for you. In a newspaper format, storytelling like that would not be wise. I can understand the conflict of people getting to this strip with wrong expectations.

The same goes with the visual style. My characters do share the same general form. This is no different than the first six months of any other strip of this type. As time goes by, the characters will slowly become more distinguished. It's an organic process and I won't lose any sleep over it. Besides, I think it takes some willful ignorance to not be able to tell the characters apart. They may have similar forms, but each has their distinguishing features. I understand new readers getting a bit confused, but to claim the cast page doesn't help distinguish my kids seems to be more a reviewer problem than mine. (I do need to be better about having the kids call each other by name.)

What I don't regret at all is having the kids fail at evil. The reviewer was upset that the kids bogged themselves down with semantics during the water balloon fight, which it exactly what SHOULD HAPPEN with them. The first arc was about these brats playing evil, but not being able to cut it. I think failed evil offers far more storytelling opportunities than having every punchline be "these kids, oh, they're so bad!" What would be the dream, having every panel four just be an explosion? Granted, that *would* be funny - for about a week. After that, it gets stale. Dragging the characters back to earth gives me far more to work with and allows for a far richer strip.

The same rant goes for the "why is this not a comic about geniuses dealing with a normal world?" Because that's not the point! Ozy and Millie did it well enough, and I wish not to tred any more in DC Simpson's footsteps than I already am. The strip is about the foolishness of elitism, be it monetary or intellectual. These kids have twisted the definition of "interesting" to fit only themelves (and those convinient to them), rendering the rest of the world inconsequential. Also, to say the parents have no commentary on the kids' actions is baffling. There was, again, an entire INTRODUCTION arc written that shows the parents are just as cracked as the children.

I'm going to cut the ranting short now before I get out of hand. Also, it's because there's silver lining GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! My application for SpiderForest was accepted! This means I have a LOT of work ahead of me to clean up my website's code, but when I do - behold the power of a fully armed and operational webcomic! (If they don't kill me for being a techie moron first.) I'm really excited to be a part of Spider Forest and I think it's the next big step in making my comic a little more awesome.

Doomed to obscurity

You know, I was so proud of today's comic. Not only was it funny, but we've secretly replaced Max with a previously unseen character. Let's see if the readers notice!

Uh, guess they didn't. DAMN YOU, READERS!

I'm building towards a joke here that requires people to notice this strange kid in the background and not think, "Eh, he has so many characters anyway - guess I forgot this one." If you are confused, check the cast page! I wanted to see a "Who is this guy?" comment today - not a "Wait, which one is Dionne again?" question. *facepalm* I know she hasn't been around in a while; but, even if this was your first time reading, her identity should be clear from the context of the strip. Also, CAST PAGE!

Now, you loyal blog readers already know the new kid's identity - but I stuck Google Analytics on this sucker and I know my loyal blog readers number around 15. I could give away the next few months of scripts here and most of my readers would never know!

Poor Vincent, you are not only ignored by my cast, but by everyone else as well.

Damn you, Rhode Island!

That's it, Rhode Island! I'm call you suckballs out! ALL OF YOU!

One of my goals with Precocious is to have a day when all 50 states visit. How cool would that be? Well, yesterday was Precocious' best traffic day yet. (Unfortunately coinciding with one of my weaker strips.) 49 states showed up. GUESS WHO FAILED ME! AGAIN! THAT'S TWICE, RHODE ISLAND, TWICE THAT YOU'VE RUINED THIS FOR ME!

I can excuse most of my lowest visiting states. If I was in Hawaii, I wouldn't want to come inside and look at comics. If I was in the Dakotas, I'd double their population. I've spent lots of time in West Virginia, and using a computer is beyond the capability of most over there. (Although this means ALL MY COLLEGE FRIENDS HAVE FORSAKEN ME!)

Then there's Rhode Island. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE! I don't care if you're tiny - we all know you have people crammed in there! Alaska and Wyoming, the EMPTY states, outperform you by over 1000%! You don't have stupidity to fall back on either, Rhode Island. You don't suffer from Appalacian Stupidity Syndrome(TM) - you're in the ENGLIGHTENED area of the country! You should grafivate towards my little geniuses!

I demand a full apology, in the form of visits, soon. If you do not comply, Rhode Island, I will be forced to make my Texas contingent invade. You know Texas, they always want another flag to wave - and yours is as good as any other! Texas will come and brand you, Rhode Island. You'll be rebranded as North Texas, and then New England with make fun of you SO HARD. It's your call, Rhode Island. Oh, and please touch bases with Hawaii first. If you show up while they're out tanning, nothing is accomplished! (Same goes for all you sporadic states: SHORE UP YOUR NUMBERS, DAMMIT!)

Oh, and FAMILY GUY FUCKING SUCKS! That's your legacy, Rhode Island - a poorly executed, derivative crud puddle. Way to go, Rhode Island. Fuck you.

Don't throw rocks at a hornet nest

I got it in my head to play around with Precocious bonus art. This drawing may one day become a wallpaper download!

This drawing would make more sense if lined up, but blogger hates things more than 400px and I capitulated. The scene is an angry Suzette angrily chasing everyone. (Tiffany, you are *really* not helping the situation by laughing.) I don't intend to color or arrange this today, but next time I get some inspiration for bonus stuff I'll have something to do.


The first wallpaper idea was to draw the kids in their supervillain costumes. It featured Tiffany with a cigar in her mouth, pulling a Lyndie England pose and pointing at a bound and blindfolded Jacob. Somehow I thought this might not be OK. (Although I still think it's funny.)


Edit: Every time I say I won't do something, I do it anyway. I wanted to test a new coloring technique and the image was still up in Photoshop, so there you go. It didn't take long to do at all, which is good. I also didn't give too much thought to design, so deal with that. I'm still not putting it on the website yet, since it would require building the extras section I promised months ago, so faithful blog readers get a bonus!



Click on that to get the wall paper at 1024x768. Other versions available are 1280x800, 1600x1200 and 1920x1200. (Those with other monitor sizes will have to stretch, dammit!)

Death by a thousand colors

Ok, so that may be a *slight* exaggeration...

Here is swatch collection 2.0 - featuring more character color and less random crap. (Sorry, dirt, I don't care if you are colored inconsistently.) This swatch is still big on the corner cutting, unfortunately. I'm relying on memory to know which colors are shared between characters instead of firmly defining them on character sheets. SHIT! I need to make character sheets! That's even MORE work! *sob*

Today has been amazing. I've done almost nothing that can be seen on the website, yet I'm still very tired. I experimented with the simplest comment system out there and still screwed it up, attempted internet socialization, worked on supporting materials and let the hours drift away. I'm slugging away at the thousand "things I should do" and *maybe* connecting weakly on a few. Just to make me feel better, my reader has also dropped off dramatically, as have bids on my ads. MY WORLD IS IN DECLINE! ABANDON SHIP!

Oh, wait, that drop was just the natural ebb and flow of web traffic. I got a huge peak in traffic from one generous site, which boosted everything, and now that wave has crashed. We're returning to the normal swells. As long as I have more readers after the wave than I did before, life remains good. I haven't even factored in how traffic varies by day of the week yet. (Mostly because I'm not yet sure what days do what.) Each feature I add should be a positive. Each strip I add should bring more people to the site. Becoming a successful cartoonist is a process that takes years, so I won't see many payouts from my current effort until I start plotting progress in the long term.

BUT I CAN STILL COMPLAIN NOW! Goddammit, I hate "creating" while sitting still! I normally bounce around! I pace! I move! What I've been doing recently has me sitting at the computer all damn day... and I'm not even geeking out! I haven't read any comics aside from my own in over a week! I haven't checked the news! All I do is code and color, with happy vacations to sit still again and ink. Ahh, but I have started to build up a buffer of strips again. Things are progressing as they should. It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt.

That being said, if anyone wants to be my colorist out of pure love for me, expecting no payment and minimal credit, SIGN UP NOW!

The brain has experienced a problem and needs to shut down

You know, I can't even remember anymore WHAT I've been working on with web design, all I know is that this idea came to me at one point in the process. The thing about web design is that you shouldn't notice it. Good design feels natural. Problem is, every new feature added is another chance to make things clunky. Also, the more you do, the more improvements you see that need to be made. I'm doing the best I can, but it melts the brain.

As of now, I am not suicidally enraged by web design, but that may be due to repressed memories. The biggest annoyance I'm dealing with is that web design is TIME CONSUMING. I have drawing and coloring to do, dammit!

The copyright info is in Franklin Gothic again!

That means I'm home! (It's Impact or Rockwell when I'm on the road.)

There will be little unwinding here in the immediate future, unfortunately. After a month of being converted to an animal/idiot/both sanctuary, my studio needs to be set up anew - a daunting task for someone as mentally drained as I.

Let's do the rundown. Moron brother has entered his 922nd consecutive day of being "sick" when asked to do work, so my grand welcome home came in lots of heavy lifting with garbage and a trip to Costco for the heavy lifting of garbage-to-be. Moron brother apparently lost one of the packages containing an order from Amazon.com, so I might have to fight the system to replace the lost goods in my future. Moron brother's definition of cleaning is, "move stuff from one surface to another surface around the corner," so you can guess what my room is like right now. Moron brother was also force to move back home, so all this stuff is strew about, adding much to the ambiance here. Moron brother's irresponsibility with my mother's credit card has forced our family to cancel Christmas to deal with the debts he's accumulated. Man, life SUCKS over here. I wonder if there's one common element that is causing all this dysfunction...

Tonight my plan is simple: Focus my stress into an eating disorder (the fat, unsexy one), break out the alcohol my brother hasn't consumed yet (he consumed a bottle of whiskey and tequila, both purchased by me, while here), and devote my life to TV on DVD. I have many options! I watched Lost season 1 while in DC, and season 4 was in the packages waiting for me, so I could continue and watch the new three seasons back to back to back. Black Friday was good to me in that I got all of Battlestar Galactica on DVD for half price, so I could start on that again. I have the first three discs of The Wire season 2 from Netflix FINALLY! The system failed me and sent the last discs first, so only now do I get to watch in order. Mom bought me the John Adams series on DVD as a gift, so that's there as well. Basically, I'm set for a piece of performance art wherein I will be playing the role of a shut-in.

As for the SKETCH, which has been ignored so far, I was feeling really sick last night and couldn't stop drawing... happy characters? Ok, whatevs. Most of drawings, being done through fever and fatigue, were crap and incomplete - but the Jacob one was close enough that I could fix the major errors (proportions) with Photoshop. The book is my joke on his corny smile. Anyone worth their salt should get the reference. If you don't, WHY DIDN'T YOU COME OF AGE IN THE 90'S LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!?!?!

Update edit: Amazon had agreed to replace my lost package. Yay! I eschewed DVDs for DVR and I'm watcing the Survivor finale/reunion. (Any non-Matty, non-Susie winner is fine by me. Sugar totally should have won, though.) I think I will go Wire after this, since Netflix must miss me by now! The goal is to drink myself into submission and stay up as late as possible so I sleep through the workers tomorrow. (Re-edit: Yes, I realize drinking myself into a stupor is not conducive to watching the ultra-complex The Wire, but I AM A GENIUS! My brain may be smart even when addled by CLASSY LIQUEURS! Or... I could watch the braindead Heroes episode I missed while in DC.

This is my angry face

I was thinking about cracking open a bottle of wine all evening. I didn't, but clearly I must be mentally drunk. MIND OVER MATTER, PEOPLE!

I should have taken my sleeping pill an hour ago. If I was a livejournal douchebag, I would predict my mood would be set to "sluggish" tomorrow morning. Look, folks, I've already fucked around on Facebook, my webcam and a blog tonight - any further douchebaggery would be lethal. Oh well, the world will have to do without my self-absorbed postings about which commercial jingles anger me.

The subconscious is one's worst critic

OR, how to start one's day in the most inauspicious way possible!

The culprit this time was a dream. Usually I have dreams of brain-numbing repetition or ones where I'm continuously hunting for candy. (Thanks, shameless sweet tooth!) When stress or gluttony dreams aren't in the rotation, it's usually mind torture in the form of anxiety dreams - where everything goes wrong for me. As noted before: My brain hates me.

In today's dream, I was shipped off the convention for people with personality disorders. The goal was to isolate us from society and teach us how to stop being drains on the world. My group was seemingly the worst of the lot. After all, our "invitations" were done in sinister black. The other defect groups had bright cheery colors linked to their disorders. Mine was black. Like, death and depressing black.

This awful group you see, was the COMPLAINERS! We were the cynics and sourpusses who lose their cool at the slightest irritant. We were mean, bitter and no fun to be around. If we didn't fix ourselves, we'd be doomed to a life of sad ostracism.

Proving the event organizer's point, I didn't take my invite well. I, well, COMPLAINED about being singled out as a bad person and admitted I felt persecuted because the black envelope let everyone else know (people who were just as dysfunctional as me - if not more so) that I was the worst of all! I was being avoided! The told me I didn't have to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of the nuts - I could help myself to candy in the guest room. (Yes, even in this dream I desperately needed a chocolate fix.)

The main reason I was upset was because they organization just didn't get it - there are two types of complainers: Zesty and bitter! I complain a lot, but I do it as a purge and I try to find some humor in it. I think running around proclaiming the sky the to be falling is FUNNY! My fellow black-labeled wretches were clearly on the bitter side. We had the old ladies who had nothing to do with their lives but yell at people for being noisy during their naps. We had TONS of repressed conservatives and Christian fundamentalists - who hate themselves because their values are so strict any deviation from them must make them horrible people, so they judge everyone else harsher in retribution. We had the general sad sacks who were so beaten down they'd lost their sense of humor. Basically, I was surrounded by BAD CONVERSATIONALISTS!

We had a private pool just for us sourpusses, but it was very unfriendly. The old ladies wouldn't get in the water for fear of getting their hair wet. The conservatives all inched dangerously close to each other in the hot tub, filled with sickening tension. The sourpusses would dog-paddle around by themselves. I was the only person to take a leap into the water and make a splash. The rest silently walked into the pool from the shallow area - doing all they could to be silent and keep the water calm. I splashed around and tried to get the people to play a game. No response. This was went I went off to complain about my "peers."

At least my brain was telling me I don't belong on that group. As the dream went on, it became clear I was the star of my crew. My fellow complainers - while still hating each other as much as themselves - all warmed to me and my charming ways. I had become a leader and I was fairly respected by everyone in the reject convention.

The next morning, I got a visit from Dana - who was wearing adorable jammies for some reason. Seems she was taken away too, as part of the "obsessive" camp. We happily chatted about sneaking off to get breakfast away from the rest of the wretches. Conversation then turned to the old lady in the bed beside mine. She was frustrated with inconsiderate people making too much noise as she slept. When Dana asked if I was causing problems - as I'm an insomniac and I toss and turn like mad - the old lady said I was the only one she liked. I was never a problem and I didn't make any noise to disturb her. It was a good self-esteem boost.

Eventually, I found some kin in the complainer group in two women. One was a pushy New Yorker whose tongue was sharp enough to disarm all those not tempered to absorb "New York charm." The other was a tall woman - well over six feet - with a loud voice and a pushy attitude. She seemed like the lawyer type. Together, we decided to write a letter to the organization explaining the two types of complainers. We might bitch and moan, but the others in the program are not our people. Line by line we laid out why they suck and why we are simply misunderstood. At one point, I sat back and wondered if what we were doing was too self-serving or something that would make us far more irritating in the organization's eyes than the wretches we found to be vastly inferior. The New Yorker could see it happening, but the other lady (who seemed less self-aware and probably wouldn't be in our group if there had been anyone else slightly worthy) got a bit self-righteous, claiming truth is truth.

At that point the dream trailed off and fell into the standard surrealism/stress dream stuff, such as me trying to reach the pool on the ground level from my floor and managing to end up hanging off a balcony a few stories up. This happens all the time in dreams, of course. Instead of going into the elevator, I ended up outside it and I had to strategically drop down floor by floor, getting me in tons of trouble for the disturbance. During this, another dream standard was at play: I was trying to travel with a gal (generic hottie) and no matter what I did, we'd be separated. I reached the pool and jumped in, only to find she had made it down with me... but forgot her suit. Once again, the pool symbolized isolation!

Overall, I think the meaning is fairly straightforward. The dream was more of a highlighter and exaggerator of stress than one hiding it in symbols. At least it was creative in handling it. I take it as failure when my brain only offers up cookie cutter dreams. Anytime I'm flying or my teeth/hair fall out, I wake up embarrassed for my brain.

Still, it's rather depressing to wake up after a dream where you are officially labeled a black-level asshole. Hey, maybe something reassuring could happen as soon as I wake up to make me feel better about myself.

I woke up to see a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER on the ceiling directly above me. It waited until it was sure I saw it, before it scrambled into a vent. Thus, this arachnophobe now knows there is a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER in my room that is just WAITING FOR ME!

There is no way this day can go well now.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

Dude, they're 9 or 10.

(Clockwise from top-left: Kaitlyn Hu, Autumn Pingo, Dionne Crup, Tiffany Et, Suzette Grady, Yvette Nutley.)

I really wanted to get some work done today, but I couldn't resist the depressing allure of football. At first, things were looking up! The Redskins won a thrilling and fully-enjoyable game! (It'll never happen again.) Then I made the mistake of watching the 4pm games... which curb-stomped my soul.

I am going to be angry at the bullshit officiating of the Chargers game until the day I die. REPLAY EXISTS TO REVERSE BAD CALLS! DON'T COME BACK, ADMIT YOU FUCKED UP AND THEN SAY YOU FUCKED UP SO FUCKING BAD THAT THE FUCKING BRONCOS GET THE FUCKING GAME HANDED TO THEM! WHICH IS THE SECOND FUCKING TIME IN THE FUCKING GAME THE FUCKING REFS FUCKED UP ROYALLY! FUCK! Norv Turner should have been allowed to beat Ed Hochuli to death with his clipboard for those obvious crimes. Yes, Ed is a refereeing beefcake, but I think an anger-fueled Norv could still do some damage. Seriously, if there ever was a case for justifiable homicide...

(You don't want to know how much football-related ranting was edited out of this post...)

ANYWAY, I WAS ANGRY! Instead of smashing things, per norm, I tried to calm down and numb my mind with lame sci-fi. Enter: Threshold! Oops, I mean Fringe. Fox decided to show the premier again with extra bonuses, like a teaser for The Day The Earth Stood Still remake which looks like it might as well be Threshold: The Movie! (To future readers not in my inner circle: Threshold was a sci-fi show that was so poorly written that it became awesome in its incompetence. It's like Showgirls, with fractal patters instead of boobs. And, yes, Elizabeth Berkley does show up in both.) Anyway, Fringe was enough to kill my angry brain cells, allowing me to get to work. I only drew one more strip, leaving me still HOPELESSLY behind, but I did get something productive from my misery. YAY FOR MY NEW POSITIVE OUTLOOK!

Still pissed, and unwilling to start inking things, I turned to the warm embrace of my sketchbook. First came a nice sketch of Dionne. Then a nice sketch of Autumn. Then an OK sketch of Tiffany, which is good considering I've been struggling with her. Well, fuck it.. LET'S GO FOR IT! I drew every girl in our smarty class, and together they average out to be a decent sketchbook page. Fuck it, it's enough to keep my string of half-assed daily posts going! Enjoy!