Big Cat

[Posted 6/27/11 ] I’m still a few comics behind. Thanks for your patience. I’m trying desperately to get caught up on comics, while also shotgunning an entire season of Game Of Thrones before my free preview of HBO expires in a few hours. Assuming I am successful I will get to make MORE COMICS about Game of Thrones that I should have made months ago when the show was actually a thing people were talking about.

Given Apple’s new multi-touch interface patent that grants them eminent domain over nearly every obvious and expected feature of the modern smart phone, you have the wonder what their strategy is going to be moving forward. Are they going on the offensive? Will they attack HTC, Samsung and everyone else that dares to have a touch screen device where the screens display colors in the visible spectrum and the icons do not trigger full volume racial epithets when pressed?

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our University of Gallifrey Fighting Time Lords Shirt over at Sharksplode.

Or will they simply let every other cell phone company know that they are welcomed to pay a hefty licensing fee for their now infringing features, such as “A phone that can display eBooks which do NOT depict graphic illustrations of cattle autopsies”? As for the bobcats circling outside every Sprint store, the employees will just say, “They must be attracted to our… advanced 4G network. Also you should put on these full body leather falconry suits before going back to your car.”

STORE NEWS: The HijiNKS ENSUE Store is closed for a few weeks so I can make some big, exciting changes. [READ MORE HERE] In the meantime you can still get shirts from Sharksplode and HE Book 2 from this very site.

INTERVIEWS: I did a really fun interview with Lauren Davis for Gamma Squad, and the full audio of my interview with ABC Australia’s Nerdzilla Podcast is HERE.

COMMENTERS: What else does Apple’s super broad iPhone Interface patent include? “A Method my which poking at stuff on the screen with your crummy fingers results in a desired action”? “A process by which unwanted phone calls from relatives/employers/ex-spouses can be identified and sent directly to voicemail”?

The Judas Cradle

[Posted 6/24/11 ] I’m still a few comics behind. Thanks for your patience.

My wife and I took out daughter to the fancy mall a few towns over because it has a nicer indoor playground than the one near our house. I stopped in the Brookstone to poke, fondle and sit on things I had no intention of ever purchasing, as one does. There was a new massage chair which was marked down from $3499 to $2000. What a deal! [Seriously, though. When you can take $1500 off of the price of a useless gadget that no one needs and it still costs over two grand, mistakes are being made on all sides]

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our University of Gallifrey Fighting Time Lords Shirt over at Sharksplode.

Before you could say,”Memory foam pillow!” I plopped myself down in the pulsating papasan. If Picard had one of these on the bridge, they never would have stopped to check out any unusual pulsars or gas clouds. That is to say, it was a pleasant seating experience. Not phenomenal, but pleasant.It actually had areas (as illustrated above) to insert your forearms and legs. Getting fully situated in this comfort-monstrosity was not unlike suiting up in a battle mech. I half expected a neuro-piston to be driven directly into my brainstem once my limbs were secured. I pressed the “Full Body” button on the remote, but kept my finger hovering over the “Happy Ending” button, just in case the opportunity for full release presented itself.

Just then a salesman walked over, grabbed the remote and said, “Mind if I make some adjustments to increase your pleasure?” As a rule of thumb, this request should always be denied. Regardless of where you are, or who is making it, just say no. The chair latched onto my limbs more tightly and tilted me back so far as to completely remove any chance of escape. He then pocketed the remote out of my reach (literally making me a captive audience) and started reciting his memorized pitch for this particular chair, which I immediately tuned out. Having been in sales for so long, I can always identify the cadence of words that are meant to sound spontaneous but have been spewed for on autopilot so often as to advertise the damage they are doing to the speaker’s will to live. When a sales pitch is repeated by a mortal over 100 times, it becomes of series of killing words. It’s more of a hex, than a list of product attributes. The salesman becomes merely a bullhorn through which this dark monologue is passed on. With each recitation his soul is eroded just a bit more. So, yeah… I wasn’t listening.

I was actually paying more attention to the guy next to him making the hard sale on some kid and his dad for an RC helicopter. How much could commission on a toy helicopter possibly be? A dollar? Two? He actually said, “What do I have to do to get you to take one of these hone today?” It’s a $40 piece of plastic, not a fucking Honda Accord. After my 15 minutes in “The Machine” were up (I had only intended to be there for 5 minutes or so), I grabbed my shoes and muttered something about sending my wife in to try it out before we made a decision. I don’t know why I play those games. We both knew there was no chance in hell I was going to buy an unattractive, impractical chair that cost the same as the nicest computer Apple makes, two 50″ flat screen TV’s or 5 plane tickets. I should have just been honest and said, “Thanks for letting me rub my butt all over your expensive bullshit. Maybe I’ll come back later and buy a digital picture frame for someone I don’t like because that’s a terrible gift.”

INTERVIEWS: I did a really fun interview with Lauren Davis for Gamma Squad, and the full audio of my interview with ABC Australia’s Nerdzilla Podcast is HERE.

COMMENTERS: Have you EVER bought ANYTHING at Brookstone? No? Of course you haven’t. No one has. They are a front for some sinister organization that plans to overthrow the world’s governments with air purifiers and iPod speaker docks. Have you ever pretended to be interested in buying something expensive just so you could play with it? Give me your absolute worst example.

Jesse Katsopolis And The Spiders From Mars

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our University of Gallifrey Fighting Time Lords Shirt over at Sharksplode.

INTERVIEWS: I did a really fun interview with Lauren Davis for Gamma Squad, and the full audio of my interview with ABC Australia’s Nerdzilla Podcast is HERE.

[Posted 6/23/11 ] I’m still a few comics behind. Thanks for your patience.

Alternate Title: HAVE MERCY! [on the human race]
So just to be clear, Josh is going to giving TNT’s new alien invasion aftermath sci-fi series Falling Skies a shot when it features a crossover with popular Lady Cop Black Mamabazo drama Rizzoli and Isles [also my favorite dish at The Olive Garden besides those fettuccine steak medallions], but only if it stars greek Gleek god John Stamos? Maybe if it gets a season two.

I watched the first two hours of Falling Skies last week. Most of the ground they covered in the pilot is well trodden. Aliens invade, presumably for Earth’s resources, wipe out 90% of the population and, much like the last 10 pounds of a diet, can’t seem to shake that last 10% of humanity from their new pre-owned planet. A resistance is formed and tries to strike some kind of balance between “run and hide” and “fight back a little.” I can tell this series is going to be a slow burn, so I am going to reserve judgement for at least a few more weeks.

Two things about the show that I didn’t really care for are 1) Noah Wyle, who never seems to show any emotion or charisma at any point during the pilot, and 2) The fact that the invasion which killed nearly everyone happened just 6 or 7 months ago and the remaining humans seem pretty well adjusted. I would expect there to just be clumps of people sobbing until they die of a lethal combination of dehydration and sadness. A couple of things that stuck out as neat are the idea that the aliens sent a massive EMP upon arrival so the survivors have no access to grid electricity, computers, radios, electronics of any kind or cars made after 1987. I like this plot device because it creates a need for ingenuity but I feel like it could become a burden on the show’s writers. [SEMI SPOILERY COMMENT IN THE NEXT SENTENCE] The pilot also alludes at least 3 times to the fact that the aliens may not be aliens at all, but some kind of precursor or descendent of humanity. I won’t be surprised if the big mystery is that the “aliens” are just returning home to see how their ant farm is doing. [END SPOILERS]

Over all I give it a B+ and sugest the sci-fi fans among you give it a chance.

Side note: When Internet was still young, and all this you see before you was just corn fields, I had a brief email exchange with Dave Coulier. He was gracious and kind and it was the first time in my life (that I can remember) when the Internet allowed me to have a one on one communication with a person I had idolized as a child who would have been otherwise completely inaccessible. For those interested, he used to run a “Caption This” photo contest on his website, and one week my submission was the winner. He emailed to let me know he enjoyed the caption and I emailed back thanking him for all he’d done to expose people like to to the world of stand up comedy.

COMMENTERS: Did you see Falling Skies? What did you think?

The Importance Of Seeing Ernest

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our University of Gallifrey Fighting Time Lords Shirt over at Sharksplode.

[Posted 6/22/11 ] I’m still a few comics behind. Thanks for your patience.

This comic is part true story, and part half-imagined night terror. Seriously, this comic is like when you first wake up and try to remember your dream. The ideas are there but you can feel them slipping away by the second. Is… is that your father? No… it’s Mr. T, but he is SUPPOSED to be your father. Well, that’s what writing it was like, at least. I’ve read it at least a dozen times and I can’t come up with a decent explanation for the sheer level of unsheathed bizzarre let loose in its panels. Did they somehow weaponize an airborne version of Four Loko? Am I “Wide Awake Drunk [TM]” and comicing? Am I currently in a Navajo sweat lodge, purifying my soul with peyote as this comic is whispered to me by the King Of All Raccoons? Was it something as pedestrian as lack of sleep? Nah, it’s probably the magic raccoon thing.

The nugget of honesty is this unwinding tapestry of madness comes from the fact that I wanted to watch Return of the Living Dead III at my birthday party (it’s FANTASTICALLY terrible) and Josh couldn’t find it on his super secret, private, special space cadet decoder ring bit torrent site. He also refused to download it from a public torrent because he’s so above that and better than the rest of us. I’ve probably gotten him in trouble with Anonymous of Lulzsec or whoever just by mentioning that such a site even exists. Oh well.

As to why I had the Ernest movies on the brainparts, I cannot discern. Again, I’m looking to the Raccoon King for answers, but all I’m getting are scraps of river-washed apple spit at me and tiny, deep claw wounds on my face.

COMMENTERS: I challenge you to 1) Come up with the Ernest movies of the last 10 years that Jim Varney never got to make and/or 2) Put Ernest in other classic movies. For instance Schindler’s List becomes Ernest Goes to Concentration Camp. Roots becomes Ernest Slaves Christmas. Wow, those were both really offensive. That just sort of happened. Sorry.

Green And Yellow, Black and White

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made a thing! Check out our University of Gallifrey Fighting Time Lords Shirt over at Sharksplode.

[Posted 6/21/11 ] This weekend we finally celebrated my 30th birthday, so I am a bit behind on comics. I will let you interperet how those two things are related in whichever way you choose. Thank you to my friends that helped me celebrate and especially to Josh IRL and Jeff for hosting the whole thing and for their tremendous generosity.

So I guess Green Lantern is pretty terrible, huh? Oh well. At least Hal Jordan has a new pal he can trust forever. I wonder what Sinestro means on his planet. I’m sure it’s something totally innocuous like “wisdom,” “truthful” or a abstract term that translate loosely into English as “the color of blood in the moonlight from a neck slit by the knife of a former friend.”

Commenters: Feel free to post your GL movie thoughts. I feel like anyone that REALLY wants to see this movie already has, so let fly the spoilers of war.