Comic posted Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004

Posted: 9:06 am, Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004

What the hell is it about child stars that leads to either religious fundamentalism or coke addictions? Why can't more people be like Danica McKellar and just go to college for math? I have none of the answers to these questions, but E pointed me out to Blair from the Facts of Life's site yesterday. Not as crazy as Willie or as Flash-savvy as Kirk, Blair relies on being a mother to get people to listen to her. Good news, though, she also does live appearances, and she's in Charlotte on Friday. Grafe, Meg, Kerry - one of you, step up to bat.

(Really, the site is just an thinly veiled attempt to save everyone's soul. The cursing is just to lure my hardened, cynical friends in. Seriously.)

Today's word of the day, from the always-recommended Savage Love: kakistocracy. A society governed by its worst citizens. Do I need a punchline? Methinks not.

That dude did a highlight package from the Washington game. Check out the crazy heart fade about a quarter-way in!

I'm going to start talking about the t-shirts the characters wear, whenever I think of it. Pete is rather obviously wearing a Cubs t-shirt, since he's coming in from Chitown. You never see his back while he's wearing this outfit, but it's a Prior jersey-tee. Ron is wearing one of my favorite free t-shirts from collitch, the Spring '98 An Tostal t-shirt. An Tostal was the spring festival at ND - it used to be a real fiesta, to see pictures from the 70s and 80s. I'm assuming it was Monk's No Fun Squad who squashed that, but it's still a reasonably good time. And there were always free sno-cones. Anyway, it was a cool orange t-shirt (although there were yellow and baby blue versions, too) with sweet lettering, and I still bust it out from time to time. The design on the back, I've never been into. But the front lettering is sweet.

I'd like to take a quick moment to address the issue of site traffic. My hosting company is Speakeasy, and they were all super-friendly when I was setting the site up. However, it looks like I have to pay more to get reads on my traffic. The basic service gives me this utterly incomprehensible string of numbers and crap, none of which I can understand. For instance, I evidently got 453 hits on Monday. That can't be possible. I know, like, two dozen people.

But, regardless of actual traffic, I would like to comment that I have a pretty interesting audience. I've gotten .edu hits from Oxford, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, and Rutgers Law. Lauren hit me from the ACLU, E hit me from her temp job at Halliburton (the juxtaposition there made me laugh). Comerica, Wachovia, and Bank of America have all shown up. Also TV Guide (who the hell works at TV Guide? Who are some of these people?). So, if we all banded together, we could take over the higher ed system, the banking system, the defense system, and television. Di's given me a hit from Ogilvy, so I could have some advertising people putting my smilin' face out there in a Big Brother manner 24-7, and I think Unity Health is an insurance firm, so we could start reforming that disaster of an industry. Five Bucks To a Better World! Huzzah!

Now that I'm done with my power trip, I think I'm going to put up a strip tomorrow. I thought about doing another Wild n' Crazy Wednesday (oh, that reminds me - anyone who used to be in an Opie and Anthony market before they got pulled last year, 2.0's old roommate Phil designed the WOW logo... crazy, huh?), but I don't want to have you people trained to expect two strips every Wednesday. However, I'm anxious to move along the whole Pete thing, so there will be a strip tomorrow. And also stuff about my uncle Mark.

bullfrog

Posted: 9:08 am, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004

Well, the rain never came, so here I am with the update. Thanks, Sam Champion, for getting me to set my alarm half an hour early. Fucker. And, yes, Sam Champion is honestly the weather guy's name on Channel 7. No doubt that's what it says on the birth certificate.

My buddy Richard posed the question, which teen actor has turned into the biggest religious nutjob, Kirk Cameron or Willie "Buddy from Charles in Charge" Aames? I had Kirk's Way of the Master site up on Thursday, and here's Willie's site, Bibleman, so that you can judge for yourself. Although, frankly, I'm going to give it to Kirk. He was in the film adaptation of those Left Behind books, while Willie voiced Hank the Ranger in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon in the early '80s. And, according to this, anyone involved with Dungeons and Dragons goes to hell. By the way, North Carolina-area Five Buckers, the Bibleman live show is coming to Winston-Salem in late October. I think you know what you have to do.

That right there ought to be enough to kill your day, but I've got some other stuff laying around to take care of, too.

TaxProf's Blog says that taxes paid by the blue states go largely to the red states, which I am shocked - shocked! - to find out, myself. There was this fantastic segment in Michael Moore's old show, TV Nation, back in '95, where he went to Cobb County's 4th of July parade right after the Republican "Revolution." Cobb County gave us that seminal statesman, Newt Gingrich, who ran largely on a platform of hypocrisy, including the Contract with America, designed to get big government off our banks. The segment centered around the fact that Newt's congressional district received $4.5 billion dollars of federal funding a year (largely because of a Boeing plant, but there was also a line on the ledger for Coast Guard funding)(Cobb County is landlocked). If you've never seen TV Nation, I highly recommend it. Moore was more focused on a wide array of social injustices back then, instead of today, where he has to focus on a president who is the most dangerous force on earth.

I put a new page up in the Museum, a few various early drafts of Five Bucks to Friday. Now that I've finally gotten to the relative introduction of Pete, take a look at how awful I used to be at this Illustrator crap (and please don't mention how awful I continue to be).

Been meaning to post these - they filmed an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent on my street a few weeks back. I don't think I've watched Law & Order since back in high school - my father loved it - and I'm kind of amused by how it's such hot shit despite the fact it's been on for 15 years now. I guess non-stop reruns on cable can really help a franchise. Anyway, I've never seen Criminal Intent, so I wouldn't know if I saw a star of the show, but here are action-packed shots from the shoot.

Yeah, I know, nothing to see here. I was actually ushered along when I tried taking a picture from any closer. All I actually saw happen was that Taurus drive off down 17th Street. It wasn't exactly thrilling. But I figured I'd post it, anyway.

More interestingly, the watch shop downstairs from my office has two more expensive pornographic watches in stock!

That's the new design. Damn minute hand is in the way, but, as you can clearly see, the second hand is still a penis, and it is still ticking back and forth with anticipation.

The other one is the same face design as the original dirty watch, as the devil-screwing-an-angel is apparently a popular motif in time-keeping accessories this season. This is a smaller timepiece, and also has yellow jewels instead of blue around the clockface. I never knew that the demand for upscale pornographic timepieces was so high. Who is out there buying these things? For $1500 or more? Can I just have the money instead? Please?

I think I've gone on for quite long enough, here.

bullfrog