The ipad - I WANT ONE!

I do not have an iphone. I refuse to buy one until they drop the whole "you have to use AT&T" thing. It's not that I have anything against AT&T per se, it's that I have this perverse Welsh/Scots/Irish streak in me that goes against the grain. I don't like being told who I can or cannot do business with. Besides, isn't competition at the heart of our entire economic system? When Apple elected to make the iphone exclusive to one carrier they lost little old perverse me.

So instead, last year I bought John an itouch for his birthday. He loves it. It's almost as good as having an iphone - runs all the apps etc. - you just can't call anyone on it. (No big deal - we have perfectly fine cell phones for that.) And it's wifi capabilities are limited because - again, we don't use AT&T. But he didn't need it to be a phone. I got it for him because he was the only family member not to have an ipod and I wanted him to have one. That, and all the other cool things it could do, including all the calendar/organizer/phonebook type stuff he likes to use it for. 

And because all that touch screen technology is just WAY COOL.

I remember watching the demo when Steve Jobs first trotted out the iphone and thinking - "Man, that is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I'ts gonna change everything!"  And I was right.

Well now I've seen the roll out for the ipad and, make no mistake, this is also going to change everything. Anyone who doesn't think this is a game changer for the publishing industry is missing the boat. 

Take a look at the images they are displaying on this thing in their ads. Notice anything? 

Newspapers, people!

They are actively showing this device with newspapers on it. 

This tablet is going to be huge for newspapers, magazines, and I think most especially comic books and all other graphic content that is not currently well served by the kindle. 

I have never warmed up to any of the other ereaders - especially the kindle. Too small a screen, too clunky, too limited. 

One of my favorite inventions of the last few years is the changing orientation screen. My digital camera even has one and I adore it.

So adding the orientation thingy and the touch screen thingy and the big full color screen thingy has definitely gotten my attention. 

Plus, the ipad will be not only an ereader - it will be a movie screen, an ipod, an internet browser, - heck - I'm sure at some point they'll figure out how to have it make my dinner and walk the dog.

Some folks are complaining that it doesn't have a camera and you can't use it to replace a cintiq. I could care less. I don't need it to be those things. That's what my camera and my laptop are for. (Not to mention the fact that every cell phone camera I've ever had was was a piece of #$%)

I always wait until new technology is out and debugged/price slashed for a while before I take the leap.

I don't know about this time.

I think John better hide the checkbook for a while.

John's Art

John has posted some of his non-Edison art over on the lab notes. I'm hoping he'll continue posting these kinds of things and also find time to get back to creating more non-comic art. He has such a gift. If you have comments on his art, please leave them here as the lab notes have no comment function.

Why I Won't Fly

I am currently engaged in a boycott of the airline industry.

There are several reasons for this.

First, the practical.

I have charted the routes and done the math, and for virtually any trip I could take that would require 10 hours driving or less, flying is no longer automatically faster. 

Checking in at the airport at least three hours before one's flight is scheduled to leave is now standard. To this we must add:

45-90 minutes (in my case) to get to the airport, depending on traffic and which airport.

30 minutes average needed to navigate long term parking and get into the terminal.

20-40 minutes the plane will possibly be delayed past it's posted departure before I can board. 

30-120 minutes I can expect to spend sitting on the tarmac waiting for permission to take off. 

30 minutes on the other end I can expect to wait to claim any checked luggage. And goodness knows how long I may have to take if the airline has lost my luggage (which they have managed to do 3 of the last 5 times I flew).

I haven't factored in the duration of the flight and I'm already at five and a half to eight and a half hours.

Now the money:

$100-$450 for a domestic (nonstop) round trip ticket most places in the US within 10 hours driving distance of my home.

$40-$150 plus for travel once I arrive - rental car, cabs, subway (assuming I have places to be other than the hotel). This fee varies greatly, of course,  depending on rental agency, type of car, number of cabs etc.

$25-$50 for checked luggage now on most domestic carriers.

$20-$40 for food and beverages on the plane and in the terminal if you don't pack your own. Even if you pack your own snacks, you're out of luck on drinks once you pass through security and gone are the days when airlines fed you complimentary meals on flights. And good luck not paying $3 for a 12 oz soda that would cost you 45 cents in any grocery store or, at most, $1.25 at a typical non airport fast food joint.

Total: $150-$540 ish

When I plan the same trip by car, I come up with $50-$135 for gas, depending on how far I'm driving, the type of car and the gas mileage it gets and the price of gas in various localities. Add $20 to eat at a fast food spot along the way (or simply stock up the car with cheaper groceries). 

So much for the practical reasons.

Now some personal ones:

Like most people, I am fed to the teeth with the new security restrictions, courtesy of every whacko on the planet who wants to blow me up along with his shoes, underwear, whatever. I'm not blaming the TSA for this - I'm blaming the whackos. It doesn't matter. The upshot is that I have to spend a tremendous amount of time trying to find little bitty bottles of every toiletry article I own, I have to submit to pat downs so intimate I should be married to the TSA agent, and  I have to worry about my electronic items being either stolen by other passengers while on the security belt (I kid you not) or messed up through radiation/manhandling etc..

None of the security stuff is the fault of the airline. I know that. That's not why I'm boycotting them, it's why I hate flying.

Here's why I'm boycotting them. 

They don't like me. 

They don't like you either.

They don't like any of us. 

They see us as cattle to be prodded through their little profit making machine and have lost sight of us as consumers. 

Many of the planes are old and filthy. The staff have been downsized to the point that they are all crabby and tired from working too many shifts. (And dealing with too many disgruntled, irate passengers).

The seats get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

They offer a seemingly good fare, only to carve back their profit margin by nickel and diming us to death over meals, bag fees and the like. 

They pretend the flight is "on time" well past the point that we all know the fog has all the flights grounded until further notice. 

And, willy nilly, they just cancel flights all over the place with no concern over what that will do to our plans.

I'm tired of giving money to an industry that values my customer satisfaction so little.

They think they don't need me. That there will be plenty of other suckers (ahem, customers) to take my place. 

They could be right.

But not if you join me.

Jean's Jazz

I will be appearing Feb 18th at the Racine Theater Guild as a featured performer for the Jean's Jazz concert series. Further details here.

What To Do With Your Old Bluejeans

My oldest son left for college this year. This resulted in our observance of the ritual known as "The Giving Up Of The Room". A ritual observed in households all across America - you oldest children know what I'm talking about. As an oldest child myself, I remember well the months of clearing through crap and the sound of my sister taking possession of my room with whoops of glee.  I don't think the ink was dry on my college acceptance letter before she began hatching her plans for the takeover. This summer, our house was no exception. Son #2 spent months regaling son #1 with his grand visions for his new space.

The part of the ritual I was not familiar with is the role of the mom, or as I came to see myself, "she who must clean up the mess and figure out what to keep in storage, what to send to Goodwill, and what to pitch".

Which brings us to the blue jeans.  Lots of blue jeans. Years of blue jeans.

Blue jeans that were too small to wear anymore as well as too crappy to give to Goodwill. And somehow, there were too many to throw away. Looking at the enormous pile, I felt a surge of guilt at the thought of adding that much bulk to a landfill.

So I started looking around the internet. I knew I remembered hearing about companies making insulation or something out of old blue jeans and, sure enough, I found a lot of sites that claimed to accept old blue jeans for recycling. 

I say "claimed" because every site I found said something to the effect "Don't send us anymore blue jeans - we're full!!!!!"

Which isn't all that surprising if you think about it. Take a look around you the next time you are out in public anywhere. There are a lot of people wearing blue jeans. They're practically a national uniform.

So now what?!

Well, it just so happened, I had a book checked out of the library at that time called "Eco-craft" that had a suggestion for making a rug out of old sweaters. I thought, "Why not a rug out of blue jeans?".

So here I offer you, for anyone who is interested in a useful thing to do with old blue jeans, my journey to a rug. 

This rug is knit using garter stitch (the very simplest knitting stitch) on size 15 needles with a long plastic extension in the middle so you can handle the width.

So, to start, you have to take apart the jeans. I found it best to take off the pockets first. You'll need a good strong seam ripper. 

Next, comes deconstructing the legs. Most jeans have extra thick reinforced double stitched seams everywhere so the best thing I found was to just cut the jeans up and skip trying to undo the seams. This will leave you with a "jean skeleton" that looks like this:

and jean pieces that look like this:

I experimented with a couple different ways of cutting and finally settled on a spiral starting from the outside edge of each piece. This gives the longest possible piece for knitting up later. Don't make the piece too thick (it will be difficult to handle) or too thin (due to the way denim frays, pieces that are too thin will eventually separate and break, making a hole in the rug).

When you've finished cutting, wind it into a ball like this.

Once you have all your jeans cut up and wound into balls, decide how wide you want the rug to be and cast on as many stitches as you need for that width. Then just knit back and forth in garter stitch until the rug is as long as you want it to be. (Or you run out of material :-)).

As you get to the end of each ball of "yarn" you'll need to add the new ball. I found the best method was to sort of overlap about 6-8 inches of the tails (so that you are briefly knitting two strands at once) rather than tying the strips in knots. The knots had a tendency to show and also to make bumps in the rug. Some of them also frayed and fell apart.  Once the rug is finished, you can trim down any of the overlapped bits that are sticking out.  

Good luck - here's to keeping old clothes out of landfills. I think I may try this with other old clothes I don't know what to do with.

How To Lose Weight

So, it's January, swimsuit season is only 5 months away and everyone wants to lose weight. Like most people I have tried a lot of diets over the years with varying degrees of success. But now I have the answer. The diet I am about to lay out for you is guaranteed to promote permanent weight loss.

Everything you will eat on this diet can be grown and harvested locally and sustainably. Free Range, Organic, Cage Free, Vegan, Pesticide Free, you name it.

Before I share this tremendous weight loss secret with you, let me explain how I came to embrace this new lifestyle regimen. 

First, my husband read "Fast Food Nation" (Eric Schlosser) and watched "Supersize Me" (Morgan Spurlock) . This pretty much knocked out all fast food and put high fructose corn syrup on our radar. Next came "The Botony of Desire" (Michael Pollan). Exit potatoes and most other vegetables and fruit - too many pesticides and too little biodiversity. Follow that with the movies "King Corn" (Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis) and "Food Inc."  (Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser) and the books "The End Of Oil" (Paul Roberts) and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (Michael Pollan).  

By the time we finished those, we were off all meat and fish (animal cruelty issues, hormones and antibiotics, ecoli, mercury), couldn't, in good conscience, eat anything that had been transported more than 30 miles (petroleum issues), couldn't eat anything packaged in plastic (again petroleum issues - as well as that giant garbage patch in the ocean), and couldn't eat wheat, soy, or corn (agribusiness abuses and allergies). 

That last one will really get you. Get a list of all the things wheat, corn and soy can be turned into (Ascorbic Acid, Malt Extract, Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, Mono-Diglyceride to name a few) and then go to the supermarket and read labels. If you can find a single prepackaged product that contains none of these ingredients let me know. I couldn't.

So what are we left with? What miracle food have I discovered that the responsible, educated consumer can eat?

Twigs.

Yep, twigs. 

That's my new diet - "Twigatarian"

Readily available, cheap (free), full of fiber, humane.

And I promise you'll lose plenty of weight. 

DISCLAIMER: The above commentary is for satirical purposes only and should not be construed as a medically sound diet.

All joking aside, I now have enough information about my food choices that I can no longer turn a blind eye to what I eat. I don't like vegetables enough to jump into being a vegetarian (so there's no way on earth I would make it as a vegan) but I may wind up going that route. I am currently not in an economic bracket that allows me to eat only organic, sustainable, local, grass fed etc., etc. But I am going to do my best this year to reward companies with best practices and deny the abusers the benefit of pocketing my hard earned dollar. Of all the books and movies I listed above, "Food Inc." actually gave me some hope that consumers can make a difference if they take the time and energy to do so.

While I really don't condone a diet of twigs, I do suggest you take a minute and check out the websites I linked to - maybe it will make a difference.

My Tribe

I have driven a lot of cars. Since getting my license, I have owned, or leased 18 different vehicles. 

The first, compliments of my parents, was a Chevy Vega liberally covered with duct tape. I would like to state for the record that the duct tape was to cover rust and was not, I repeat not, holding the car together. The Vega came to a quick end when I was the fourth car in a six car chain reaction accident. Not surprisingly, the other vehicles (big honking Buicks and pick up trucks) came away with minor scratches and dents while my poor little Vega bled all its radiator fluid out onto the rain slicked pavement. 

The first car I actually owned outright was a 72 Dodge Polara station wagon. It had a 400 cubic inch, V8 engine, ran on leaded gas, and could truly reach the 120 mph top speed indicated on the speedometer. (Don't ask how I know this.) It was a garage mechanic's dream. I bought it with 92,000 miles on it - drove it to 160,000 and replaced the exhaust system 3 times, the brakes twice, the transmission once, the water pump the alternator and the battery once, and had the radiator plugged I don't know how many times. I don't think I ever had the carburator rebuilt, but I remember frequently getting out to take off the cover to the air filter so that I could jam a ball point pen into the butterfly valve to get the car to start. I finally sold it to a scrap yard when I was afraid the frame was going to break in half if I drove too fast over the railroad tracks. 

Then came a series of used station wagons. (I have to transport harps, remember.) The last was a Ford Taurus wagon with about 60,000 miles on it that actually almost killed me when, at 65 mph, some bolts sheered off and the flywheel broke loose and ricocheted around the engine. I was able to maneuver to the side of the road and walk to a gas station for help but I was really shaken.  It later turned out that those bolts were under a recall. This car would verify the axiom "never buy the first model year". 

At this point, I decided to look into leasing something off the showroom floor. I thought perhaps all my trials and tribulations came from buying used. I needed something reliable and I was also eligible for a tax break on the lease, since the car would be for my business. 

Thus began the parade of Taurus's (Tauri?) and Dodge Caravans. Each of these was nice and I felt much safer but, honestly, I was so glad to turn them in after 36,000 miles. In my book, you should be able to drive a car at least that many miles without much more maintenance than oil and filter changes and the usual weatherizing that comes with midwestern winters. And these cars were needing major repairs by the second year. Probably the most fun was the Caravan which, suddenly - at 10:00 at night - on the Chicago Skyway- driving through Gary, Indiana - would no longer go any faster than 40 miles per hour. Loooooong trip home to Wisconsin -biiiiiiig cell phone bill as I talked to John the whole way in case the van actually broke down altogether.  It turned out to be a faulty speed sensor. So much for the reliability of buying new.

So, as I said before, I have driven a lot of cars. A lot of American cars.  (A total of 14 of them) I mention this because I would like to make it clear that I think we gave the American auto industry plenty of chances to impress us and provide us with vehicles that were within our budget and would last longer than our loan agreement.

In 1995 we bought, for all non-harp related driving, our first Japanese car. A red Civic hatchback that got 43 miles per gallon. We test drove everything in its class - Ford Fiesta, Toyota Tercel, even the Geo Metro. (Remember those?) The Civic won hands down. The power of the engine and the gas mileage coupled with the Consumer Reports findings on reliability were too good to ignore. We not only drove it out from under the five years of payments, we drove it four more years beyond that and would probably be driving it still if an uninsured, distracted driver hadn't plowed into John doing 45 mph on a 25 mph residential street and totaled it. 

With the insurance money for the Honda (another plus - they hold their value really well) we were able to get a used Toyota Celica GT that was oh so fun to drive and had those retractable headlights. That took some getting used to - I felt like I was driving a muppet with big eyebrows when those lights came up out of the hood. But it was cute and had power and handled great and got decent mileage. Then, again we were hit. This time it was me driving and the other driver ran a stop sign and nearly took my front end off. 

This time the insurance money was  a little less so we wound up with a 1990 Toyota Camry wagon. A little bit of rust but ran well and was practical. I was still leasing vehicles but finally decided to bite the bullet, take on the 6 years of payments and buy something in which I could carry the harp and the entire family. So, in 2005, I opted for a Honda Odyssey bringing our Japanese car count to 4 in 14 years. Much better investment for us and a great vehicle.

Which brings us to (choir singing) THE MAZDA 3

This year the  Toyota reached the point that it really shouldn't be driven  anywhere that someone else in the family can't easily go and pick you up. And forget taking it out of town. So we needed something that John could drive further than 20 miles away when I'm hogging the Van for harp jobs. Again, we did tons of research and John test drove everything comparable. 

Until he drove the Mazda 3.

His search was over.

We have never driven a car like this.

 

A sportscar in an economy car's body, it is SO MUCH FUN!  

And it handles like a dream, makes it up our ice covered driveway with no sliding,  gets great gas mileage, and  didn't cost a fortune.

I may never drive any other car again.

For the first time in my life I understand brand loyalty. I find myself looking around at other cars on the road and when I see another Mazda I feel a kinship. I know that I will instantly bond with any and all Mazda owners when I encounter them at cocktail parties, sporting events, high school band concerts - whatever.

I have found my tribe. 

The tribe of the Mazda. 

Pastis in Doonesbury?

I know Zip is a regular character in Doonesbury but today it really struck me how much he looks like Stephan Pastis. Coincidence? I dunno.....

*****Read about  Trudeau and Pastis on the USO tour here.

Christmas Madness

Tis the season, not so much to be jolly but to be massively behind. John and I are in major catch up mode to get strips out so blogging will remain light for the next couple of days :-)

Hope everyone was Merry Merry !! 

Kreative Blogger

Many many thanks to Margaret Shulock for naming the Edison blog (and the whole site in general) for a Kreative Blogger award.

Margaret is one of the Six Chix (whose strip and blog I read regularly) and an incredible lady. You can read about my visit with Margaret this summer here.

Part of the award includes naming 7 blogs I would give a Kreative Blogger award to and linking to them. I'm pretty much sticking with my blogroll (Between Friends, The Mad Blog, Bizarro Blog, Cul de Sac, Pooch Cafe etc.) down at the lower right but I'm adding one and sort of reinstating  one. 

First, is the blog for Fiddlehead Yarns. This is the blog for a yarn store near me and, though it is local and you probably won't be popping in for yarn anytime soon if you don't live around here, the blog is always interesting anyway. And inspirational - you may find yourself having to run down to a yarn store near you to get knitting, crocheting, etc.

Secondly is the wonderful blog for Kieran Meehan who does the King Features strip Pros and Cons as well as single panel cartoons and fabulous paintings. I had to take Kieran's blog off my blogroll because somehow it would never load right or update but I read it regularly and you should really check it out. 

Also I am supposed to list 7 things people don't know about me. This is tough because thanks to blogging and the internet I think everyone pretty much knows everything about everybody these days - we are the paparazzi now - but here goes:

I am an addicted knitter since 1980 (when you couldn't get any decent yarn - only acrylic - man, how times have changed.)

Even though I play classical music for a living, my radio is always tuned to rock or NPR.

A piece of English Toffee (my favorite candy) once cost me $1500 when it pulled off a dental crown which was subsequently lost.

I was a classically trained ballet/modern/jazz dancer for 12 years.

When my mother advised me to take French in High School (because every musician should) I stubbornly took Latin instead. (This was to backfire on me mightily when I went to France to study harp knowing only "Ballet French" - honestly, you can only get so far knowing things like "Fondue means to melt" and "Tondue means to stretch")

I am allergic to fish.

I cannot abide beets.

Ultraman Flap

OK so the emails are coming in. We know, we know, we know about Ultraman. We knew it would be a problem before the strip ran. The company that readies Edison strips for publication reminded us about the name and it was decided to change it to "Captain Amalgam". That change was to be effected by the production company and it obviously did not happen. To Ultraman fans everywhere we apologize.

Produce Drawer of Death or "I Need a New Fridge"

So it's the holiday season and that means guests. 

And that means cleaning. 

Not just cleaning. 

CLEANING. 

As in everything.

Everything as in all three bathrooms - including the medicine cabinets (you know people open your medicine cabinets), all the mold and mildew in the shower (you know they look at that too - I don't know why, but they do), the toilets (including under the lid - a place the boys in my life should understand some people will see), behind the toilets and the pedestal sinks (ugh!.. my very least favorite - it's where all the dog hair not only gathers but somehow congeals), and the ritual placing of the fake towels (you know the ones - the ones no one in the family ever uses so they'll look nice for company - and the "company" thinks they are also too nice to use and so they sneakily wipe their hands on the shower curtain).

Everything as in moving all the furniture when you vacuum because someone might actually change the position of something and discover what's lurking under there much of the year.

Everything as in all the doors and door frames and light switches and kitchen cabinet knobs that apparently have not been cleaned since last Christmas. It's amazing how much grime builds up in these places without me noticing it. When I suddenly become aware of it about, oh.. Dec 6th, I am stunned at its obviousness and our slovenliness. For a brief moment, I worry that this grime will have been obvious to any and all other guests we may have had throughout the course of the year. Then, like the blissful forgetfulness that follows labor pains, I put it out of my mind until next December.

Everything as in the stovetop (never, I repeat never get a black enamel rangetop - shows every last water spot and grease speck) and the oven door and the dishwasher door (goddamned stainless steel). 

And, finally.... everything as in the inside of the fridge. Yes the inside of the fridge. Because not only is this the time of year for many guests, it's the time of year for many guests to help you. They will be in the kitchen helping get food on the table and fetching things in and out of the fridge for you and JUDGING YOU.

Which brings me to why I need a new fridge. Because not only is my fridge of an unknown age (it came with the house 12 years ago and it was probably at least 15 years old then), my fridge is frightening. Frightening because it makes a variety of unsettling noises  - hisses and pops and growls and grumblings - it's like something out of the Shining. When I open the door, I expect to hear "Redrum!" or else see those animal things from the fridge in Ghostbuters. And frightening because of all the death it contains. Dead soup, dead bowls of spagetti, dead half eaten yogurts, dead jars of crystalized jam, dead chinese food, and dead produce. 

Now the produce is in a different category of death. Most of the dead items in my fridge consist of optimistically placed leftovers. (You'd think after 24 years John and I would know which types of leftovers will actually get eaten and which ones are doomed to become a ritualistic sacrifice to the refrigerator gods. Yet we continue to put all supper leftovers in there blithely assuming they'll turn into lunches.) These I at least have no problem eventually throwing away - they never taste as good as when they were new anyway and they grow fascinating varieties of mold. But the produce represents a bigger failure. The produce represents a quest for healthy eating. Salads never made, vegetables never served for dinner, oranges that, while they looked juicy at the store, have turned out to be little rind covered balls of sawdust.

I try, I really do. Every trip to the grocery store I buy all these healthy fresh foods with every intention of consuming every bit of them. So where does it all break down? Why are these foods not getting eaten? It's not that we are junk food junkies - we love to cook and these  are foods we actually like to eat. 

No, the fault lies with my fridge and the produce drawer of death. My theory is that it is all the fault of the design of my "freezer on top - fridge on the bottom" refrigerator. First of all there are two produce drawers - one that says "moist cold" and one that says "vegetables and fruit" and the fact that I cannot for the life of me figure out what is supposed to go into the "moist cold" one if it isn't vegetables and fruit. Second is the fact that the drawers are tinted like sunglasses and you cannot see what is in them without opening them. This, of course, means that, unless you open them constantly, stuff is pretty sure to be going bad in there. Thirdly, and here is where we get to the new fridge part, the produce drawers are all the way at the bottom of the fridge. I practically have to get down on my hands and knees to even get access to them. Talk about out of sight out of mind. So what I need is... drumroll please... one of those new refrigerators that has the freezer on the bottom and the fridge on the top with the lovely french doors and the produce drawers right smack dab at eye level. With clear plastic that I can see through to boot. 

I am absolutely, stupendously sure that this will solve all of my fridge death problems and we will eat healthy evermore. And, I won't have to clean the fridge this year for company :-)

Are you listening, John?

Kudos

This one really got me today. It is so true.

When Snark is Hilarious

I found this the other day and I have to say I laughed out loud for nearly a minute. 

http://thecomicssection.blogspot.com/2009/12/brilliant-mind-of-edison-lee-for-one.html

Ice Scrapers I have Made

Let me start by saying that I live in the Northern Midwest. Not only that, I have lived my entire life in the Northern Midwest. Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Chicago, Wisconsin. This means that I have experienced Winter. And I really mean Winter. 

So, round about December, there is really no excuse for A) being unable to assemble  a matching pair of thermal gloves or mittens B) not knowing where anyone's snow pants are C) not knowing where any boots are and - most importantly - D) not being able to find a single ice scraper.

The explanation I offer for  A is that my children think all gloves and mittens are there for the taking. So they take them. And they never bring them back. No matter who they might actually have belonged to. This has led me to view the school lost and found as a sort of glove and mitten exchange where I can - for a brief moment in time - borrow a pair of mittens to replace the ones my child has donated - for a brief moment in time - to your child.

The explanation I offer for B and C is that I carefully put these items away into storage - usually in about July. July because, in Wisconsin you might still need your boots and snow pants in May, and by June - when you are just about sure you don't need them anymore - you still might. And by July you are tired of kicking the boots every time you enter the back door. So I put them away - each year selecting a new foolproof "I can't possibly forget where I put them this time" location. 

By August I have forgotton where that is. By September I don't care. By October I know I should care but still don't. In November the temperature will be 65 and sunny on Tuesday and, without warning, a blizzard will descend on Wednesday - followed within 36 hours by subzero temperatures. (This year Snow took a pass on November and sucker punched us this week with over 17 inches falling in Madison on Tuesday. We were told not to expect this sort of thing this year as we are supposed to be having a balmy "el nino" winter.)

Which brings me to D  - Ice Scrapers. Unlike the first three, ice scrapers fall into a completely different category. Rather than put them in with seasonal items we must acknowledge that they are really in the ball point pen/comb/nail clippers/brush/scissors category. If you are wondering what all these things and ice scrapers could possible have in common, I'll fill you in. These are items that - no matter how many of them you may own or how many you may buy to have on hand - you will never ever be able to actually find one when you need it. 

Douglas Adams had an interesting theory on the subject - at least when it came to ball point pens (which he calls "biros", both dating himself and pegging himself as a Brit). He opined that there was a  planet composed entirely of ball point pens on vacation and that, whenever they felt like it, they simply slipped through an interdimensional corridor and sloped off to their alternate planetary home for a little R & R, reappearing when it would be the most convenient to them and the least convenient to you. I agree with this theory wholeheartedly. I just think Adams didn't take the theory far enough. It definitely includes at least all the items I mentioned above and it most definitely includes ice scrapers.

Which is why, every winter, it is entirely not my fault that I don't have any.

Which brings me to what I use instead. To date I have tried: 

Books (whatever is in the car trying to get back to the library - obviously hardcovers work better than paperbacks) 

Credit Cards (relatively effective as ice scrapers, no longer very effective as credit cards afterward) 

Spatulas (really ineffective - the plastic ones don't have enough of an edge and the metal ones scratch the windshield)

 

CD cases (very effective and my scraper of choice yesterday - I would however, recommend removing the CD first as snow gets inside the case) 

Tupperware Lids (reasonably effective unless they are circular) 

My Shoe (utterly useless - I was really desperate), and finally 

Repeatedly pushing the button that puts de-icing liquid on the windshield and trying to sort of melt it off through an anti-freeze windshield wiper combo while cranking up the defroster inside the car. This last takes forever because the car takes so long to heat up. It also pretty much shreds the wiper blades.

So, tomorrow I'm off to buy approximately 25 ice scrapers in hopes that one or two of them will be handy. I'm sure they will all have disappeared by Christmas.

Mother Goosed

John is part of an exciting book project titled "Mother Goosed - Twisted Rhymes For Modern Times. This is the first book to be published by the new non-profit Southport Publishing and launches this Saturday November 14th. You can find more details and all things "Mother Goosed" related at the official Mother Goosed Blog. Here also is a calendar of events for the launch of the book. And here is the interview John and his colleagues Chet Griffith and John Bloner did with the local NPR station this morning.

The above cover art is the work of Dianne Levesque.

What happened to the Striptoonist?

Does anyone know what happened to the Striptoonist? I was really enjoying this site - it was so nice to see someone posting their favorites rather than their "unfavorites". I hope it comes back - otherwise it perpetuates the "the internet is only about snark" argument.

Occasionally I Write Stuff

Comics news has been slow lately so I'm posting some of my "non comic strip" writing. I'm not sure if I'll ever illustrate this poem or push to publish it formally anytime soon, but I have taken the trouble to copyright it. 

Socks

It wasn't a terribly special sock.

It wasn't striped or brightly colored. 

It wasn't hand knit, nor was it made of fine or exotic materials.

Not alpaca wool, not silk, not carefully harvested sustainably produced bamboo fiber.

It wasn't a fashionable sock - inviting all to admire the sophistication of the ankle it adorned.

It wasn't a high tech sock - wicking away sweat and other nasty fluids in an effort to maintain a perfect and harmonious foot hygene.

No - it wasn't a terribly special sock.

But it was an important sock.

In fact the most important kind of sock.

The sock that is... missing.

That was all, it was missing.

But somehow the fact that it was missing was everything. 

The fact that it was missing was the tipping point.

She knew that, if she found it, all harmony would restore to the cosmos.

Her corner of it anyway.

Her children would become bright, shiny, and successful - winning Nobel prizes, changing the world. They would be the sort of organized capable people who did great things. And, most importantly, they would pass this organization gene on to the next generation of bright and shiny grandchildren.

And the glory would be hers.

Because she was the root.

The genesis of all the bright, shiny capableness that was to come.

She had taught them everything.

But...

It was missing.

And if it remained missing - well, the result was chaos.

The children would drop out of school.

They would never earn more than minimum wage.

Hell, they might even end up in prison.

And then, worst of all, they would pass on that hopeless, helpless, unorganized, incapable genetic material until the end of time.

Because she was the mother.

And they always blame the mother.

Copyright © 2008 by Anne Morse-Hambrock, all rights reserved.

Can Facebook Bring Profitability to Comics on the Web?

Facebook has been gradually adding more and more services for which they charge a fee. The latest is a partnership with Lala and involves sending people songs for a 1o cent fee. It looks as though the micropayment idea is alive and well on Facebook - could this be the future of profitability of comics online? 

I have long advocated a micropayment system for online sharing of comics. I hope the syndicates are busy hammering out agreements of this sort and that revenue will stream back to their comic creators. I can tell you I would much rather send a friend a comic than fake flowers or some of the other things folks send over the internet :-)

Throw Away Panel 9/13-10/25

I meant to post these two days ago. Sunday's strip features a strongman tower similar to one which first appeared in the throw away panel from 9/13.  (Although the throw away for this week was just a simple mallet so I'm posting from the body of the strip instead.)

As you can see, it got a lot more elaborate as it became the focus of the later strip.

I Hate Halloween

I hate Halloween. Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. But it's definitely not my favorite holiday. 

As a kid, it ranked right up there with my favorites. Probably only third behind Christmas and Easter. With those two, Halloween completed the trifecta of candy holidays. As in "You, the child, will receive copious amounts of sugary treats on these three days of the year. The other 362 it's back to unsweetened cereals and whole grain bread." (My mother was a health nut - never any sign of a Hostess Twinkie or any other Hostess product within 20 yards of our house. Maybe this is one reason Orville gets to eat so many of them.)

When did this change? When did my aversion to Halloween begin? I'll tell you. 

1995

I can tell you exactly because that was the year our first child turned four and our second child turned one.

That was the year I met the other moms. 

The ones who sew. 

The ones who would never be caught dead buying their kid a Halloween costume. Who equated parental love with a willingness to make oneself nuts making a perfect homemade Trick or Treating outfit extraordinaire. 

Now I am creative and artistic and can paint and crochet and knit with the best of them. I can even sew. Sort of. Basically I sew rectangles. I can make pillows and tote bags and valances and can even sort of slipcover cushions (I didn't photograph the back of these - you would see how much of their perfect fit is owed to the glories of duct tape). But sewing things that actually have to fit on curves and around ankles - well, you can't duct tape the kid into the Halloween costume. I think they call DCFS on you.

Not only did this group of new friends make perfect costumes for their kids, they also made them for themselves. Every year for about ten years we were part of a group that had a big Halloween party where everyone had to wear a costume. And this brings me to the other reason I now hate Halloween. 

I hate dressing up in costumes of any kind. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

I gave it a good shot the first year we went to the party - John and I made everyone bird costumes. (Though coloring bedsheets with spray paint - not a good idea. Massive toxic fumes. Fortunately only on our costumes - the kids were in non toxic yellow jammies or something). 

I think I even came up with something pretty good the following year. But then something snapped. Then the party became, for me, a sort of game where I would see how little I could do to dress up. 

Non-costumes I can recall: 

The Artist - I threw on a grubby "painter's" shirt and carried around a palette and paint brush.

The Farmer's Wife - the same jeans and shirt and shoes from the previous year - I ditched the painter's accessories and put my hair in braids.

The Poet - I dressed all in black,  put on dark, dark lipstick, and wrote up about 20 fortune cookie-esque poems to be handed out upon request.

The Princess - I put on one of my old Bridesmaid dresses.

The Harpist - really a cop out - I just wore what I usually wear to a gig. 

and my personal favorite:

The Failure of The Women's Movement - this costume also included my then five year old daughter. She went as a princess and I put my hair in a bun, found one of my mom's old June Cleaver type dresses from the 50's, and a double strand of fake pearls. I got this idea only days earlier when attending a Halloween/Birthday party for one of my daughter's classmates. I kid you not - every girl at the party was a fairy or a princess and every boy was The Hulk or Spiderman. How far we've come :-)

John, on the other hand, excels at making costumes. Except for the year he went as a painting (when I was the painter - get it?) he usually puts a lot of time and talent into costuming.  I especially remember the year son number two wanted to be a character from Sonic the Hedgehog. John made this out of a bicycle helmet. It took days.

And here is the infamous R2D2 costume. You can read all about the genesis of this over on John's recent lab notes.

So, in closing, I'll wish you all a Happy Halloween. I'll happily buy $40 worth of candy and pass it out to the neighborhood children, and you too, if you stop by. 

Just don't ask me to dress up.

Kudos

Perhaps I find this so funny because we own a little terrier like this and the strip is so true :-)

Also, this gives me an opportunity to give a little shout out to Patrick McDonnell in general as I consider him to be a genius at color. When I started doing the color for John I looked around the comics at how color comics generally look. I checked out "The Art of Patrick McDonnell" at the library (our paper does not carry Mutts, more's the pity) and I was thoroughly blown away, both  by his art work and his use of color. If I can contribute color to Edison that is even one tenth the quality of Mutts I can die happy :-)

Beer Day

Today must have been beer day. We didn't get the memo.

Killed Cartoon

Check out John's lab notes for a cartoon he was unable to run recently.

I know it may seem redundant to post here about posts there, but I do it because we just cannot get the comments to work on that part of the site. One of the reasons we added this other blog was so that readers could post comments - John does check this blog regularly so if one ever had any comments to pass along to him, here (or his site email) is the place to do it :-) 

Comics Kingdom (Again!)

"There's no such thing as a free lunch". 

That's a pretty old saying, and I'm not really sure where it originated, but it's still true. Pretty much nothing is free. It may be free for you but someone, somewhere is paying. You may not personally pay for every meal you eat, but someone else is - either your parents or your spouse or your employer or even your local charitable community if you're eating at a homeless shelter. If this is not true for you and you really are eating for free and not through the charity of someone else, I can only assume you are stealing food to eat.

The same is true of your entertainment. Unless you are deliberately stealing the movies and TV shows you watch, you have two choices: either pay for the content directly through a subscription service like cable (or even go straight to the movie theater) or else watch network or public television, both of which are subsidized - one by supporters and pledges, one by advertising. Even if you are watching things on Youtube or the internet, I challenge you to find much entertainment out there that doesn't come with advertising. 

So how does this tie in to Comics Kingdom? I'm getting to that. For years both cartoonists and the public have lamented the small number of comics in newspapers, not to mention complaints about size and legibility, which are ever shrinking in an effort to reduce costs. Many papers engage in comic polls to help them decide which comics to run as they try to please readers without spending too much money on the comics page. For years, folks have told their newspapers they not only don't want to drop any comics, they would actually like to have more comics in the paper. Whatever newspapers would like to believe about which section of their product is most important, comics still draw readers more than anything else. 

So here's your chance. If you still prefer to read your newspaper in print, go ahead and keep doing that. (I love the portability of my paper, as well as how easy it is to cut things out and save them - without using up  my own printer paper and ink) But if you are one of those people who now gets all their news online, please consider clicking one of the links below and checking out the papers who are carrying comics kingdom. And if you find that you really like being able to read every comic king features carries (while having the expense of producing the comic supported by advertising) while also being able to get to the host newspaper's other content as well, keep going there daily. And, if you like what you see but would rather read your own local paper online instead, contact your paper and ask them to sign up for comics kingdom. And if you really want to support the comics, be sure to click on some of the ads on that page. (Remember, it's not readership that's so down right now, it's ad revenue. Clicking on these ads will encourage future advertising on these sites - allowing you to continue to view content) Now is your opportunity to show papers how readers start their day reading comics and then turn to other sections of the newspaper.

One disclaimer: So far, the revenue for artists from comics kingdom is more mysterious than the revenue from dailyink. This means that the best way to support the comics you like directly is to continue to subscribe to dailyink. The fee is small, (I mean, come on, $15.00 for a whole year of as many of King's comics as you like!) the feature is convenient - delivered to your emailbox every morning, and revenue is directly shared between the distributor (King) and the creator.

So here are links for all the comics kingdom papers of which I am currently aware. If you know of others, pass them along and I'll add them to the list, as I intend to update this post regularly. In the spirit of brazen self promotion, these links will take you directly to Edison first - after you arrive you can browse to your heart's content. And please take a minute to vote for your favorites using the stars in the lower right hand corner. You do not need to be a registered comics kingdom user to do this. 

Toronto Star

San Francisco Chronicle

The Oregonian (Portland)

Seattle Times

New York Daily News

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

San Antonio Express News

The Oklahoman

The Denver Post

Sarasota Herald Tribune

Tulsa World

Erie Times News

Albany Times Union

Cincinnati Enquirer

Louisville Courier Journal

Times Picayune (New Orleans)

News Leader (Springfield MO)

Las Vegas News Leader

Lehigh Valley Express Times

Athens Banner Herald (Georgia)

New Jersey Star Ledger

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Birmingham News (Alabama)

Kitsap Sun

Spokesman Review (Spokane WA)

Post Standard (Syracuse NY)

Staten Island Advance

Patriot News (Pennsylvania)

Dayton Daily News

Journal News (Hamilton OH)

Springfield News Sun (OH)

Middletown Journal (OH)

Western Star (Lebanon OH)

Oxford Press (Oxford OH)

The Republican (Massachusetts) 

Albuquerque Journal

Longmont Call (Colorado)

Grand Rapids Press

Beaumont Enterprise

Chattanooga Times Free Press

The Monitor (McAllen TX)

The Roanoke Times

The Arkansas City Traveler

The Wenatchee World

One more quick note - some of these sites seem to work better with firefox than they do with safari. If you experience problems accessing the site, it may be your browser. I'm sure either King Features, or the paper in question, or both, would be interested to hear about any difficulties accessing their content.

Kudos

So many good ones today, but these two got my biggest laughs.

Aaaaaaaagh!!!

I absolutely HATE it when this happens! Can you see it? Can you? Bet it takes you all of a nanosecond. And yet I didn't see it until reading the strip on dailyink today. In the words of Homer "Doh!"

Gill is Back!

He's baaaack! One of John's and my favorites strips is Gill by Norm Feuti. The character has been on hiatus over the summer but is now back and part of a new, updated website for all Norm's projects. You can find all things Norm here.

Smaller Than a Dime

I came across this post by Tom Richmond the other day. In it he shows a portion of an illustration he colored. He spent over 20 minutes on it, later to realize the final image would be smaller than a dime. This came to represent a waste of time on his part and he has since changed the level of detail in his coloring. I absolutely understand his reasoning and accept his decision, especially as Tom frequently works on large, very intricate illustrations. 

Only, here's the thing....

Pretty much everything I color turns out smaller than a dime :-)

I easily spent 20 minutes coloring all this food (some of you may remember it from an earlier post). And, if the dime in these photos doesn't give you a proper sense of scale, to the right of Orville in the second picture is the head of one of the kids from family circus. 

After reading Tom's post, I gave some thought to my coloring process - should I really be scaling back on detail? I decided no. I made this decision based on the fact that, unlike a lot of illustration work that will be primarily viewed in print, what I do is seen every day mostly by people on the internet. Very few of John's print papers actually carry the dailies in color. Not only are the images larger on dailyink and comics kingdom, they have zoom features on those services. It is true that the images have their resolution seriously reduced to save on bandwidth, but I'm going to stick with the detail for now.