Comic for Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

Posted: 8:50 am, Tuesday, March 13th

I should really know better than to do a weather-based story in the springtime here in New York. We're a solid fifty degrees warmer than we were a week ago, when I wrote this one. Oh well. We'll imagine that I've got my act together enough to actually collect these suckers into a book someday, or that many, many people go through the archives, and no one will have any idea what the weather was like on March 13, 2007, except for the really crazy uber-fan/stalkers that go through the Almanac to check my work for accuracy and add this to their notebooks of clippings and red ink about the many ways I've disappointed them over the years. Whoa, that got weird.

I've mulled the idea of making a Five Bucks Almanac more than twice, by the way. I've never gotten far enough to actually start planning it out, but it's interested me on and off over the last two and a half years and you never know if a fit of activity will take me someday. I imagine it wouldn't be totally different from the time RAW, Sweaty and I talked about making a short-attention span version of the student magazine at Notre Dame - all pie charts and two paragraph stories and box scores. Basically, USA Today. Which was my lifeline back in Italy - we bought every Monday edition for the football recaps, both collitch and NFL. I think there were two actual ties in the NFL that year, which was ridiculous.

Probably worth keeping an eye on.

The Year of the Book continues - almost done with Forever, which I have immensely enjoyed at times and found a bit draggy in others (such as now, late in the book). 2.0 says it would've been better as a Master and Commander sort of series that just never freaking ends. I haven't read any of the Master books, although CK and my father swear by them. I agree with 2.0, although I don't think the author (Hamill) has the attention span for that sort of project. Up next, I believe I may poke through some of the McSweeney's quarterly that just arrived. Or maybe it's time to finally get a library card. I've only lived in Brooklyn for years now.

bullfrog

After reading Forever, you will never look at a water tower the same way again. Also - Pete Hamill finished it the night before 9/11, then re-wrote the ending. This is Murph's fav book of all time - so much so that she actually wrote the author with questions, and he wrote back, in character.... I think I still have the email if you are interested.

T-Shirts before Almanac, please!

No worries, MNP. I need to get my computer back from Dell before either can happen, though. I have one design in mind that's so off-topic as to be barely related to the strip. So that's probably the leader.

Yeah, I started reading the back of the book with the reader notes and stuff and saw the part about 9/11. Which irked me, because he was still running around with slaves at the time and I didn't know how far in history the book was going to go.

Curious to know, what were you doing in Italy?

If you're going to do an Almanac, you need to pull out a lot of weird and goofy facts. (And very vague weather forecasts.) I've maintained that Almanacs ought to be more like Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

Oh, and in general, the television weather forecasters are really heavy drinkers. Trust me, I know.

I did a semester abroad in bella Roma my sophomore year - a slew of the commentors on the site are from the Rome program. It was a great time, and I learned precisely enough Italian to order a drink and learn that no Italian women wanted to speak with me.

How to tell it's not your day: You hit Pearl Jam on shuffle in your iPod and the first song that comes on is freaking "Hey Foxymophandlemama That's Me."

Is Ron putting on a Red Sox motorcycle helmet?

Fuck that foxymop song.

Red Sox wool cap. Why I never featured Ron in a winter cap 'til mid-March while Pete's been trucking an Irish one and the girls have all had their various girly-fashiony hats on all winter is beyond me. I guess it's really cold in the alternative-reality March of Five Bucks.

Getting briefly serious, I got extremely pissed at the news last night - I think it was the CW11 evening news - when they phrased Kiley's stepping down as "The Walter Reed scandal has cost another top army officer his job."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031200746.html

I have a serious problem with the wording of that. It makes it sound like the surgeon general of the Army was just an innocent bystander caught up in furor that he had nothing to do with. This guy cost himself his job by not fucking doing it. This is not some nosy whistleblower costing a good man his job (I, of course, have no idea the quality of this man's character, but he certainly wasn't doing his job), this is accountability on a high level, where it's called for.

OK, I'm off the soapbox now. Sorry - This Modern World reminded me of my rage.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0711,tomorrow,76038,9.html