Comic for Friday, September 1st, 2006

Posted: 12:15 am, Friday, September 1st

My office building had a blood drive yesterday, and if you were in the first sixty to give, you got a free burrito from Chipolte. I don't have the patience to wait in the ridiculous line for the Chipolte near my office, so I gave that to a work buddy. But everyone who gave got Mets tickets. So, in exchange for a pint of my lifeforce, I gained a pair of nosebleed tickets to see the Mets and the Marlins in mid-September. That's funny, because they stopped playing baseball a few weekends ago, didn't they? By the way, I'm type O negative. That's right, my blood is fucking metal. Who wants to step?

For some reason, I only just bought the new Dylan yesterday afternoon. After one listen, I like it better than Love and Theft, but not as much as Time Out of Mind. But I friggin' loved Time Out of Mind, so I don't know what that says, really. But it’s getting some pretty solid reviews. The Morning News checks in with a cut from it on their weekly Mp3 list (compiled, this week, by Sasha Frere-Jones of the New Yorker). I don't even know how you can really review a new Dylan album fairly - the man casts such a long shadow that he could record the best album of his life and you could easily argue that it's nothing compared to his stuff from the Sixties (his period from 1963 to 1966 will never be matched by anyone, I think it's pretty easy to say). (By the way, there's a lot of talk about how odd/creepy it is he namechecks Alicia Keys on the new album - I don't really care about the creepiness of it, since Hollywood forces November-May romances on us all the time, but the oddness? He's been namechecking hot chicks for decades.)

Randomly found David Byrne’s blog – he talks about the 826 Benefit from last week, mistakingly saying that probably lot of the audience was unfamiliar with Sufjan Stevens. While I personally don’t care much for the guy’s music, David, darling, *everyone* was there for Stevens. Or Jon Stewart. Everyone.

I was going to save this ‘til closer to 9/11, but why bother? 2.0’s been trying to get me to read the graphic representation of the 9/11 report for a few weeks now, and I finally got to Part 1 the other day. Lady, That’s My Skull gives a fairly in-depth look at the comic bookness of it, and how important it can be in the effort to get people to understand the 9/11 report. I’ve got to say, Chapter 1, while dealing with events that we all know pretty well, was very well done and has information people who just rely on the talking heads (the ones that actually say something that reflect reality, not the enablers at Fox) may not know.

Speaking of the effort to get people to understand things, check out this Times article. My favorite paragraph is

Doubtless familiar with polls showing increasing numbers of Americans drawing a distinction between the Iraq war and a larger battle against terrorism, Mr. Bush invoked the approaching anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to rebut that view.

Yay! An increasing number of Americans have gained the power of cognitive reasoning! WHOOOOOO!

Dear God. I hope I don’t have to see this monstrosity on the subway anytime soon.

Tomorrow, the Irish kick off their second season with the Robot Genius at the helm, and I cannot wait. I am hyped up for some mackerel-snapping anarchy, that’s for damn certain. So! Notre Dame, Georgia Tech. What’s the history there? Glad you asked, since Blue-Gray Sky and Classic Ground drew up some history the other day. And two final YouTubes for luck. The first is the most famous ND-Georgia Tech game, in which a Hobbit sacks the QB on the final play of the game. And the second is an awesome inspirational and somewhat nonsensical Lou Holtz address to the team, or students, or alumni, or someone. I’m not really sure what it is. But it gets me every time.

Oh, and, hell, here's the Fight Song. There’s no fucking way I’m doing a pre-weekend prediction this season. I’m too afraid of jinxing the team. Because I, a dude with a webcomic and only slightly more knowledge of collitch football than Ty Willingham (quickly approaching a career losing record, by the way), am clearly capable of affecting the outcome of this weekend’s game by typing something.

Oh, I finally got a picture of the worst hat I've ever owned, also in time for the Irish kickoff. Check this puppy out:

Tragically, this does not even make the top 50 bad fashion decisions I made in ninth grade. It's been added to the Catalog of Shame page in the Museum.

I was trying to find a MySpace nightmare all decked out in Georgia Tech shit, but happened upon this guy, instead. Anyone who is a huge A&M and Green Bay fan, and yet has a picture of Mark Brunell on his profile, has the Alien Ant Farm version of Smooth Criminal, and came up with 'Cleveland' in a 'What American City Are You?' quiz meets all whatever criteria I may have for the nightmare of the day.

Alright, gang, have a great Labor Day weekend, and I'll see you on Tuesday. Go Irish! Beat Yellowjackets!

bullfrog

totally unrelated to anything you posted.... how insane is this??? http://www.weeklydig.com/blog/articles/kiddie_actor_a_former_hungarian_porn_star

Glad you're appreciating the graphic-novel 9/11 report. I think Slate made a great decision to get the rights to that (obviously I'm a little biased) and I think it's working very well.

It's 64 degrees in Washington today. I am loving fall! Too bad it's also pouring rain, but you take the bad with the good.

I'm going to spend this weekend holed up with the NFL Preview issue of SI. Best issue all year!

Um, ew, Crownover.

We're getting remnants of Ernesto up here tomorrow, which means 64 and pouring rain. I'm not complaining - that's good stew weather, and stew is good football-watchin' food. And I don't know if I've successfully conveyed this, but I'm pretty excited about football.

In case anyone feels like making themselves a mix CD to take to the beach this weekend, since you're going to be stuck inside getting rained on, Pop Tarts etc. etc. has a bunch o' mp3s of summer songs, some indie, some Top 40, ready for the download if'n you want.

http://poptartssucktoasted.blogspot.com/2006/09/fridays-weekend-mix-of-music_01.html

I've discussed this here, right? That Gnarls Barkley song? Totally overrated? Everyone agree with me on that one? I'm open to listening to someone defend it, if someone feels like it. I just don't see what the big deal with it is.

So I've decided as a brand new superstition for this year, I'm going to place a GO IRISH!! post here before each game.

My reason is that in 2005, the only games ND lost were one's that we watched at my In-Laws house, so I forbid watching of the Fiesta Bowl there. Of course, someone brings up right before the game that technically it's 2006, and you saw what happend. Tomorrow we have gather at my place since 13 month old twins need their sleep at night. Therefore, I need to switch something up.

Yes, I'm a grown man with 3 kids and a college degree, but fully believe this is necessary (don't ask what I did to get the White Sox their title last year).

So, as I said... GO IRISH!!!

Whitey, there's a much more rational explanation for why the Irish lost those three games last year. They were the only three that my old roommate Sweaty attended.

He's going to Penn State next week, and if we lose that game, I'm driving up to Boston immediately afterwards and killing him when he tries to re-enter his house.

Go Irish!

Given the moniker, I'd say death by electroshock... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

A great sign for this year is that my 4.75 year old daughter is ecstatic that we will be attending the Army game in mid-November.

This is the same girl who after taking her to her first college football game last year when my alma mater Northern Illinois was upset by Ball St, turned to me as we were leaving and said, "Maybe next time we can go to a Notre Dame game so they can win."

By the way, awesome hat.

I'm moving and I'm not giving you my new address.

I won the national title with Northern Illinois in NCAA '98 once. Go Huskies!

Sweaty, you're so damned loud I can just echolocate you anywhere on the globe.

The only thing I like about the Gnarls Barkley song is the bit where he laughs and says "Bless your soul..." Makes me snicker every time I hear it.

One of the music blogs I check out had something about the VMAs, which were evidently last night. I used to be moderately aware of these things because my office was located across the street from Radio City Music Hall, but the past few years, I have been blissfully unaware (a lie, now that I think about it - I registered that Green Day won a bunch of American Idiot and was pleased). Anyway, they broke down the winners and I noticed one category that was so ridiculous I thought they were mocking MTV. Then I realized MTV may actually suck enough ass these days to have that category. So I went to their site, which has enough random Flash garbage going on to plunge all of Japan into seizures, and after being bombarded by *three* animated ads at the same time, I discovered that, yes, indeed, MTV awards a Moonman for "Best Ringtone." I was unfamiliar with the fellow that won it, needless to say.

Best fucking ringtone. My God.

leinart's having a kid? http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1449309,00.html?cid=recirc-top5-2-1449309

joe totally f-ed up the bowl game too. i sat next to him for that massacre...

Indieblogheaven has what is currently my favorite new Dylan track as an .mp3, if anyone's interested in a listen.

http://indieblogheaven.typepad.com/indieblogheaven/2006/09/bob_dylan_is_li.html

Fuck me, that was a whole lot harder than I thought it would be.