I’ve now made special trips to both Target and Wal-Mart to find me a copy of Kevin Smith’s latest Q&A DVD (An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder) and still, I got nothing. Why must Best Buy be on the other side of the gridlocked city during the times that I’m actually able to go???
So for about the 876th time this year, I started up my exercise regiment again this week. It’s been kind of rough because my elliptical is currently broken (at $400, apparently you get what you pay for…) and most nights I just don’t have the energy or time to go down to the gym after I get home from work. Plus, I’ve started working longer hours again, so time is a luxury that I just don’t have, but as my doctor said – your health isn’t exactly the thing you want to slack on.
Anyways, today was my 2nd trip down to use the treadmill and luckily for me (ha!), I got to re-live a fond memory that I have from my last home – that of trying to exercise while the neighbor’s kids are playing in the gym. Fortunately this time I had music to tune them out once I got going, but it just blows my mind that these parents can’t have a little more respect for the people who live around them. When I showed up, someone was running on the treadmill, so I began to decide which other machine I’d use instead. But after a few minutes of sitting there half lost in thought, I realized that the girl wasn’t actually “using” the treadmill – instead, her and her friend would jump on and run as fast as they could (the motor wasn’t running), then hop off to watch the thing spin. Finally I stood up and asked if they were actually exercising on it, they said no and walked away. Nonetheless, they continued to horse around on the rest of the equipment for a good half an hour – completely unsupervised. When they left, the bowflex machine was broken, there were weights and whatnot all over the place, and although I couldn’t tell with the weight machine, it wouldn’t surprise me if something was wrong with that, too.
I have two issues here. Ok, well three…
It’s sad because this is really the best resource that I have available right now – this kind of nonsense really isn’t necessary. I don’t have the money to buy better machines for at home, and although I could get the $25 gym membership and go someplace else, right now I can throw on my exercise clothes and be on the treadmill in ten minutes. I like being that close to home … now if only I had better neighbors…
Tomorrow’s bout will probably be later in the evening, so we’ll see if I have another “audience” then. 🙁
I really should stay up and work on creative stuff like I said I was going to, but I think I’d rather just call it a night and pick things up again tomorrow morning. Today I put in a solid 12 hours at work … was there by 8:45am and didn’t logout until almost 9:00pm … and although I actually consider it to have been a really good day, I’m just exhausted. I pretty much came home, made a quick pizza and settled into the couch to watch some Surface on DVD, and now here I am. How about we just meet back here sometime tomorrow and try again?
Good. Night.
…
Also, Sara started working the night shift this weekend, so this is about the second time in 7 months that I’ve slept alone, which is just kind of weird, I suppose, but we’ll talk about that later… 😛
Seriously, am I the only one who didn’t know that Every Breath You Take by The Police was about a stalker?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9A_vxIOB-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1I95dqrAY&NR
Almost hard to believe that everybody hates us…
http://www.imagecomics.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=22662
I’ve spent a good portion of tonight, between other things, reading all of the posts on Scott Kurtz’s board regarding the new animations that he’s trying to put out. It’s kind of sad to see just how many people are causing such a stink about paying the twenty bucks for a year’s worth of episodes (12 total – 1 / month) of production-quality animated content from a strip that they claim to love. I’ve got a feeling that ultimately he’ll be ok, and I hope to be able to subscribe myself when the launch date gets closer, but it’s just rough to see such mixed support from your community like that when it comes down to the almighty dollar…
Granted, he’s on a much higher scale, but I know the line between liking something you read online and helping to fund something you read online, primarily because I’ve still got a stack of Ink, Paint & Tears… 2006 Wall Calendars here that went unsold and even those we did were in the 2-digits … LOW 2-digits, at that. I wish I knew where I’d found it, but I remember reading somewhere that if an online artist gets feedback from their readers to the tune of 1% – be it financial or verbal – then they’re doing better than most, basically showing that only a remote few will ever support you or even just tell you how you’re doing. Now Kurtz has a sizable army – arguably one of the biggest in his field – and so far they’ve got a 26+ page debate going on in the forums whether people are willing to support him on this latest venture of his. The post that threw me was one calling Kurtz a jerk (paraphrasing) because he frankly said, “Wow. How can some of you guys afford the internet. If 20 bucks makes the difference between your children being fed and going hungry this week…maybe you guys should switch to dial-up or net zero or something. I’m sorry you can’t…pay for things?”
I probably don’t do it as much as I should, but I have supported various efforts on the Internet over the years, whether it be by purchasing a book or a sketch or just making a small donation – every little bit helps and most people take forgranted the idea that when people create something, they’re usually doing it in their free time at their own cost. The next step up – doing what you enjoy doing for a living – requires MONEY and that has to come from somewhere. Advertising only cuts it for very specific scenarios anymore these days and the rest are left doing it as a hobby, which is fine as long as they’re willing to do it. I don’t know – maybe it’s just hard for me to read that kind of stuff because the bulk of the Internet community has always seemed so “cheap” to me, for lack of a better reason. College students and younger adults, all who want their entertainment for free and yet don’t mind dropping similar cash on booze or DVDs later on that weekend. Sometimes I wish everything just went by a tip jar solution, and that would be enough. I enjoyed Penny Aracde today, so I kick them a buck or two. PVP sucked this time, so I’ll find somebody else that makes me laugh that time – no biggie.
Good luck to Mr. Kurtz on his new venture. If anything, it’s something that’s only been done once before, so hopefully he does better than his predecessor and shows us just exactly what the next step is like! I’m jealous – I’d love to see our characters animated.
Then again, there’s still plenty of time…
(Get drawing, Lori!)
Dinner went off without a hitch, except for the fact that I started the sweet potatoes too late and burnt my fingers something fierce trying to scoop them out, but all in all it was great! It looks like a lot of food, but I’d say that the leftovers will be gone in another day or two, with the exception of the desserts, of course! So much cheesecake…
Things That I’m Thankful for in 2006:
1. an amazing girlfriend who’s more than I could’ve ever dreamed of (…goes without saying, though, doesn’t it?)
2. friends and family who are great, even though I don’t see them nearly often enough
3. a job that is finally starting to come around, to the point where I haven’t absolutely hated going in in quite a while
4. the ambition that Sara and others have been pushing to get me to start writing again
5. L7 Comix (shameless plug)
So far it’s been a great holiday weekend – only one more day to go. 🙁 Last night Sara and I went to Clearwater Beach to walk off some calories, then spent a bunch of money on uber-cheap DVDs at Wal-Mart during the last remaining minutes of Black Friday. Today we were going to go over to Disney, but got lazy instead – Sara’s playing Kingdom Hearts and I’m trying to write right now. We might still make it over to Mickey’s world tomorrow to see some of the decorations, but if not, we’ve still got all of December, too. Happy holidays!!!
I just got back from a midnight run to Wal-Mart to pick-up stuff for Thanksgiving dinner. We were just going to put off getting everything until tomorrow, but I remembered that a lot of businesses like to close early the day before a holiday and I’d hate to end up missing things. I got most everything – we’ll just need to hit up Sweetbay for a few extras and some wine because Wal-Mart doesn’t sell it. That, and I need to return to Honeybaked Ham tomorrow during my lunch hour because despite one of their busiest times of the year, they were still closed by 7:30pm when I showed up earlier tonight! I could’ve sworn that they were open later last year when I bought my ham for Christmas. Oh well…
So I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, for a change. It’s just going to be Sara and I, and possibly one of her friends, for dinner, but we’re still going crazy with the food. We’ll have leftovers for weeks, but it’s all good! We’re even pretty much making everything ourselves, too, at least from the perspective that we didn’t just grab the Betty Crocker pre-cooked tubs of potatoes, stuffing, etc, etc… (and they had it all, I was impressed!)
Scott & Sara’s Thanksgiving Menu:
HoneyBaked Turkey
mashed potatoes w/gravy
sweet potatoes
broccoli / rice stuff
Stovetop Stuffing
corn
dinner rolls
pumpkin cheesecake
caramel apple pie
french vanilla ice cream
…and probably more wine than we could ever get away with at a family dinner! 🙂
It’ll be fun. We don’t know what Sara’s new schedule will be yet, but I’m off for the next four days and can certainly occupy myself with writing if she ends up going in (I don’t think she will, but…). We’ll probably watch lots of movies on Thanksgiving itself, along with an obligatory Muppet Christmas movie to start that holiday spirit a-rolling! Assuming that Sara gets the weekend off, we’ll probably go over to Disney on Saturday to partake in the holiday decorations over there. They just finished putting up the lights at the guardhouse of our subdivision today and it looks really cool – lights in the bushes, snowflakes in the trees, and the guardhouse itself is a gingerbread house – I’ll definitely have to try and take some pictures one of these nights! I also told Sara that I probably want to put up our Christmas tree, although we really need to clean before that can happen, so we’ll see.
So much to do, so little time to do it in, and yet it’s still the most wonderful time of the year! God, I love Christmastime…
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/11/tolerance_2.html
Admittedly introduction is kind of drab, but skip ahead about halfway through to where they start going door to door and it’s pretty entertaining! I think I liked the bishop the best, but the old man who started swinging his rake was cool, too…