Comic for Friday, December 23rd, 2005

Posted: 12:01 am, Friday, December 23, 2005

Thank God this freaking strike is over. At least, it's supposed to be over - we'll see how smoothly my ride into the office is in the morning. By the way, I apologize to anyone who's not a New Yorker who has to watch news about the transit strike or anything like that - it can't be terribly interesting to you folks.

Speaking of not terribly interesting, geez, did anyone read the site yesterday? That was brutal. I'm really sorry about that - the fatigue I felt after blading into the office was the exact same as after a full day of skiing. I would have been probably better off walking. Oh, and if anyone saw the comments from Wednesday, the lovely and talented CK suggested the Manhattan Bridge to me, since its paved walkway would be easier on my knees than would the boardwalk of the Brooklyn Bridge's walkway. And it was, although three things happened to make me kind of wish I had just put up with the knee pain. One is that the B/D goes over the Manhattan Bridge, and a D rumbled by at one point, which got me really excited that the strike was off, only to have 2.0 dash my hopes. The second is that the insane Marty Markowitz was evidently at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge welcoming everyone home with a, "It's OK, you're back in Brooklyn now, everything will be OK!" Seriously, that guy's a cartoon character. I love it. The third is that the knee pain may have distracted me from the unimaginable shin pain blading to midtown and back caused. Crikey hell.

Also, lest you question my dedication to y'all, I tried taking pictures of Christmas stuff on the way home, but the camera died immediately. That's a shame.

So, I'm going to quick do a link dump because this is the last Five Bucks for a week or so (might be back next Friday, definitely Monday the 2nd in time for the Fiesta Bowl preview). No real rhyme or reason to this stuff, just crap I've forgotten to link to in the past week or so. Tom Tomorrow's year in review part one, the NY Times notable books of the year - I've read, like, three, and I can't remember if I already linked this or not, a sweet little McSweeney's on "long story short," one of the dudes from EDSBS says take OSU (down toward the bottom), the AV Clubs's best flicks of '05, been meaning to mention the strangely Christmas-ed up front page of Doonesbury for a week or so now, a conservative media watchdog that can't spell its mission statement correctly (they were linked to on Fark, so this may be fixed soon, since I'm sure it got flamed in the comments), and an outstanding post from NDNation that got someone baninated. Hall of fame loony, there.

I was going to do the top five books of the year, but in realizing how few films I see, I've come to realize how few new books I read in a year. So I'm just going to do my five favorite books that I read in the past year, although I'm certain I'm going to forget some of them. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was excellent, although it was apparently not perceived to be as excellent as Everything Is Illuminated. Maybe just because the subject matter - 9/11 - is much more familiar with me than the shtetls of the first book. Work and Other Sins, I've spoken about a few times and as recently as last week. I can't recommend it highly enough. Loved that book. Harry Potter doesn't need much description. I still think the Goblet of Fire is my favorite, but I've only read this one once so far (yes, I'm that kind of dork that reads the books multiple times - whatever, shut up). The Zinn Reader, stretching way back to January, was excellent. I recommend the People's History of the United States over this one, but if you've read the People's History, the Reader will give you basically your fill of Zinn and activist history. It's fantastic. (Speaking of fantastic, Landslide just came on my iTunes - love that song.) Hm, fifth. We'll give it to Tricked, which chronicles an obsession with music that Nick Hornby only wishes he could've written. (Partly Cloudy Patriot almost made it on the list - Sarah Vowell's great.)

So, I was thinking of making that the top five of '05 for the day, but I think I'm going to be completely self-serving instead and list my five favorite strips that I've managed to crank out over the year. Actually, writing that just looks terrible. Oh, I know, I'll list my five favorite strips that someone else does. No, that's basically in the links section.. Eh, screw it. Here's pictures of ornaments on my Christmas tree, instead. This is where everyone can rag on me because of the bizarre ornaments I put on my tree, and yet still have the audacity to mock the office tree.

2.0, for our first Christmas together, started a nice tradition of buying
us a pair of ornaments each year (actually, the first year it was two). These
are last year's. I probably should've left other ornaments in for scale - these
things are friggin' ginormous.

These are the ornaments from the first Christmas. I'm pretty sure
the pink one is technically 2.0's.

And this is one of this year's. I'm listing these first because when
we get into my ornaments, the class factor drops immediately.

This is one of my favorite ornaments that I've had since I was
quite small. I think the box says it's a Red Bird of Peace,
but I've never heard of such a thing. Doves are typically white.
Whatever, it's cute.

My aunt made this for me when I was one. It's a baked-dough
ornament, and for the first six or so years of my life,
I wanted to eat it every December. My mom prevented
this from happening, though. She always ruins my fun.

I bought this at a craft fair in kindergarten for a quarter.
2.0 does not understand why such an ornament was made,
but I have always liked it. It just looks yummy.

You may not know this, but I like Charlie Brown a lot.

OK, this one is where we transition into kind of the weirder ones.
2.0 and I, two years ago, celebrated New Year's first in Harlem and
then on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn - quite a distance, we rang in midnight
on the 1 train, but that's beside the point. We were meeting some friends
of hers at this place that was described to us, when we asked a guy
on the street for directions, as "a bucket of blood." Astoundingly, this
description was used again when we were trying to find the same friend's
birthday party the next year. I've never in all my years described an
establishment as "a bucket of blood." Oh, the ornament. We stole it
from the bucket of blood's Christmas tree. It has Barbie on it.

OK, these are all three very nice, but still, we're getting weird.
What with the nickname, I get a lot of frog things. The frog in the foreground
is painted glass or something, and has got to be the most fragile thing on
the tree. The mushroom is not much more durable. The frog in the
background is Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, actually, I believe, from
the Wind in the Willows. I have a great illustrated edition of that
book at home. I love that book. I hope it doesn't suck - doesn't it blow when
you love a book as a kid and then you read it and it turns out
to actually really suck? Man, I hate that.

This is an old Charlie Brown ornament from
2.0's family tree, and a '66 Mustang.

This would be Kal-el, the last son of Krypton,
popularly known as Superman. We've entered the
mindlessly commercial part of my tree.

This is clearly the Starship Enterprise, leaving the orbit
of a hand-darned Christmas stocking. This ornament's pretty
valuable, actually - they really under-produced it because it
was the first in a series, and it goes for about $175 to $225 on eBay.

Well, the Enterprise needs something to fight
while it's on the tree, no? I just capitalized tree
out of habit right there..

That's right - it's friggin' Joe Montana in his
green Notre Dame jersey. I can't believe they made this
ornament - how freaking random is that? I don't even
know if Hallmark made a Montana in his 49ers jersey
ornament, but there he is, ol' number 3. Fucking Leinart
doesn't have a Hallmark ornament. The sucker.

And the last photo from our little tree, so MNP doesn't feel
bad about not having a topper - this is a felt Santa head from the 70s
that somehow I left my parents' house with. Good times.

Alright, well, that's about it. I don't know why I felt the need to show you all our Christmas tree ornaments, but there you go. I'm in work 'til about two this afternoon and then I have to go finish up some shopping and figure out something nice to make for dinner, and then 2.0 and I depart for realms upstate. I'll be back with something at the very least on the 30th, as I've mentioned a few times, and we'll get back to the ol' douchebaggery here on the 2nd, the day the Irish pound the Buckeyes into a bloody pulp of poisonous nut.

So, from all of us here at Five Bucks - which I guess is pretty much just me - merry Christmas! From 2.0, happy holidays! See you in a week or so.

bullfrog

I'm worried about the Nano.

Please tell me there's like a scarf on the floor or something...

Why do you *always* want me to tell you how it ends? (-:

Fine, but just so you know, I think that weird sketchy man left his coat on the floor...or maybe he's a former Giants receiver and he catches it. Something like that.

Receiver...that is that what you call the guy that catches the football, right?

oops, sorry about the extra "that."

I should just cancel the strip and run endless gift guides - here's allmusic's guide to the audio edition of 2005.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=34:

There's even a section called the 90s Never Ended, for RAW, and an unfortunately titled Yankee Swap section that includes Bronson Arroyo's album. IRONICAL!

Enjoy your well-deserved holiday, this strip never fails to amuse/entertain/destroy-my-work-ethic-via-blog-links every day and I predict a huge surge in reader growth for you in '06.

Zero

Day 1 in Texas (should have been two, but I got to the airport only to find my flight canceled last night). I then got the full body pat down by TSA. Texas is hot and there are HUGE American flags everywhere - and Texas flags next to them all. I just saw a wreath on the front grill of a pick-up truck - it had a longhorn skull in the middle - of course. My aunt lives in Delay's district and we passed his office. I might try to stop in before I leave town - pick up some materials. There isn't enough Shiner Block in this state to numb this Liberal :-)

I miss my Five Bucks!

Happy (almost) New Year's!

Me too! I keep checking just in case. so sad.

Yeah, I got home later and more tired than I thought, and accomplished precisely nothing over the holiday. Didn't even get a strip *written,* much less drawn. But I'm alive and will tend to affairs and get something up for Monday. Oh, that reminds me, I need my coworker's worthless prediction on the Fiesta Bowl. Anyway, hope everyone's home and healthy and happy. Boise State shat the bed, but Nebraska and the Sun Belt refs made sure Michigan wound up with a Davie-esque record, which is always nice. We'll have strippage on Monday, folks. Have a good weekend!