Whine and Cheese

I was more than happy to have a three-day weekend thanks to the Columbus Day holiday. There is nothing I enjoy more than sleeping in, especially when there is an extra day. It was mostly a weekend of odds and ends.

• Friday was a bit of a blur. Because of the number of people who had taken the day off and the employee picnic, the office was practically empty by lunchtime. I think when I left, there were four people in the office counting myself. I'll head into the office tomorrow asking what the employee picnic was like.



• I found a new podcast over the weekend that I am loving. It's called "Lore," produced by a writer named Aaron Mahnke, and each episode describes something scary or horror-related from the past. They're only 15-25 minutes long, but they have a great NPR kind a feel to them. From what I've read online, a producer of "The Walking Dead" is in talks to turn it into a TV horror anthology. The podcast is available on iTunes, or you can find it at http://www.lorepodcast.com.



• Saturday was sleeping in, followed by a grueling workout. It's an alternating workout of kettle bell swings, squat thrusts, and standing squats. You do 15 swings, followed by 15 thrusts, and then 15 squats. Then you do 14... then 13... then 12... until you get to 1. I am soaked to the skin with sweat by the time I get halfway done and am exausted at "1." Still, it does work those butt muscles.



• Saturday night I went to my buddy Rob's birthday dinner. It was a good time, but I ate WAY TOO MUCH. His birthday cake was almost half-made of icing, I swear. I woke up Sunday with what I call a food "hangover."



• Sunday was more of the same. Sunday night was the 2nd presidential debate. It was pretty much the train wreck I expected, but sadly I wasn't as irritated as the first. The Orange Dumpster Fire pretty much showed his true colors again, especially after his past p*ssy-grabbing comments have come to light, refusing to answer questions and deflecting what he could to topics he half-understands. The online world had a field day with the debate afterward. I really wish the election was over and done.



• I spent most of the day cleaning out old tee-shirts and socks. It sounds weird, I know, but it's amazing how fast old undershirts get stained and socks lose their elasticity, but they always end up in the drawer again. I think I made some room in some overcrowded drawers.

Tomorrow is a substitute Monday... ugh..

I'm three pages away from having the interior pages of my next comic book issue done. I've spent a lot of time on them today, getting eight pages colored today, as well as getting some laundry and house cleaning done. My desire to have the pages done has to slow down a bit, as I worry that my coloring gets sloppy if I push myself. I'll have it done this week.

While I've been coloring away, I've been watching some of the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) horror movies. Today's list includes:

• "My Bloody Valentine" -- the 2009 version. It's very well-written, containing a bit of humor in some places, along with some inventive scares. There is a scene where a young lady, after having sex with a hunky bald dude and realizing the dude had videotaped their rendezvous, goes after him to get the video tape while wearing nothing but a pair of high heels. The credits actually thanks the wife of Todd Farmer (the bald dude, who wrote the film) for allowing them to film him naked.


• "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" - A 1972 zombie flick about a group of theater players who go to an island cemetery to invoke the devil to raise the dead with some deadly results. It's poorly acted with some really bad early 70's fashions, which means I love it!


• "Deathdream" -- A 1974 horror gem, written and directed by the same guys who did the "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" movie. This movie deals with a soldier who returns home to his family who believed him dead. The problem is that he is dead and must kill to keep from rotting. It's an interesting flick, because the mother overlooks the obvious problems with him while the father can't help but notice that things are wrong. Side fact: The aforementioned director is Bob Clark, who directed 1974's "Black Christmas" (my favorite), "Porky's," and, most famously, "A Christmas Story."


• "R.I.P.D." -- The 2013 box office bomb starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges as two supernatural police officers who must arrest and capture the dead who roam the world. It's not a perfect movie, obviously, but it has some fun bits and I'm always a fan of Reynolds.

Ugh... Monday is tomorrow. I am so not ready to go back to work, but I'm like that most Sunday nights.

It's been a busy, busy week.

One of my coworkers is on vacation this week, so I've been trying to cover my workload and his. And it's really worn me out having to review his cases when people call or email me with questions. So far I think I've managed to keep both trains rolling along, but I'll be happy when he makes it back on Monday.

My evenings have been busy too. Besides softball, I have several work friends in town for a conference, so I've been doing after work dinners and happy hours this week. This kind of busy has been enjoyable though.

My routine activities, like house work, drawing, etc. have fallen by the way-side as a result, including any LJ posting. This drawing is from last year, but it seems fitting.

Things will be back to normal next week.

This week has been tiring and busy, so I haven't been in much of a posting mood. Not that I've been in a bad mood, but I'm fairly wiped out at the end of the day.

• Milo the Cat continues his self-imposed, storage-space hiatus. He's almost like a sad kid who didn't want to go to his grandparents' home for the summer. When I am asleep, he does get out. When I'm at home, he stays in the storage space. When I check on him, he just stares at me, keeping his distance. I am getting some faint glimmers of hope. He meowed at me today when I looked in on him an hour ago. Baby steps, I guess.



• I did catch up on my DVR. I've been really enjoying this season of "RuPaul's Drag Race." I thought the Snatch Game episode was a bit of a bore, but the queens are a varied bunch this season. So far, my favorite two are Bob the Drag Queen and Thorgy Thor, both of whom are doing well in the competition. I strongly suspect Bob the Drag Queen will win it.



• The local softball season was supposed to start with a scrimmage this past Tuesday, but the fields were too wet from a couple of rainy days. I was both disappointed and relieved, as work has me so tired I wasn't sure what my game was going to be like.



• On the car front, I found a brown Kia Soul that I really, REALLY like. I test drove a 2014 last weekend, but there is one at Carmax that's a 2015 with fewer miles and less cost, so I'm having it shipped down to Cincinnati from Illinois. I'll give it another test ride when it shows up, but I think I'm wanting it.



• I'm in a bit of a creative slump. I've started writing Issue #20 of my comic, but it's slow going. I guess I'm just not in the mood.



• I am getting the itch to do some hard-core Spring Cleaning, including some purging of the comic books. I tried this once with little success, but I'm starting to buy into the idea of uncluttering those that I really haven't read or wanted to read for some time.



• I burned through some of my earned credit card points this week. I decided to get into my "wish list" and get some DVDs. One that just came available this week is 7500, which I wrote about a while back. It never got a wide-release in the US, which is surprising as it's better than some of the other crap that has been put into theaters of late. I'm watching it as type this up. I have seen the movie as someone posted a subtitled version on YouTube.

Luckily, the weekend is looming and I'm grateful. I'm looking forward to sleeping in and enjoying the warm, sunny weather we're supposed to have.

Sometimes the hardest part of recovering from a cold is trying to physically get back into the swing of the usual routine. Those energy reserves that normally help with the odd stresses of the day just aren't back yet, so the end of the day leaves me unusually drained.

Still, I'm trying. It was a sunny and mild day here today, so I decided to go for a run. I'm not back to where I was in terms of time, but I did push to get the distance in. It felt good at the time. After getting home and showered, I was wiped out. Muscles have started aching from the sudden usage after weeks of taking it easily. I'm going to seriously regret that tomorrow.

So I crashed in a sense. I was going to work on my comic book tonight, but my creative drive isn't there. Instead I decided to do the most un-creative thing possible.... my tax returns. Luckily, my refunds are pretty good, which I plan to put to good use.

I watched the new "X-Files" episode tonight, which was goofy and a bit disappointing to me. The new series "Lucifier" is pretty interesting though. I found the premiere episode last week to be fun and I knew right off the bat that it would raise the hackles of the One "million" moms group, who have already threatened sponsors with boycott and everything. I couldn't care even if I had the energy.

Yay... Monday is done at least.

I took the day off, the last of my "use or lose" vacation time from 2015. I used the day to write off a few of my usual birthday time errands, like paying the property taxes on my car, getting new car tags, etc.

I paid my taxes with one of my "Grizzly" checks, which got a few odd looks from the assistant clerk. It's not every day a check comes to her office with the image of a hairy-chested, bearded superhero on them. After I left, I'm sure she probably said something to other clerks.

So now I have a three-day weekend and no distinct plans, which is fine. That head cold of mine is still hanging on, with lingering congestion, making mornings a bit gross. So the big idea this weekend is probably getting some rest.

My dreams have been a bit odd lately too. I'm not sure if the medication is to blame or not. Last night's dream had me being critiqued by old college friends after I gave a speech or something. The biggest negative was my apparent lisping, which they stated made me sound incredibly gay. I don't have a lisp in real life, so this didn't make sense to me, but the feeling was a bit unnerving, being judged by old college buddies.

Anyway, it's Friday and I'm off work, which makes me happy.

I feel a nap coming on. :)

I seem to be lacking for topics to write about. Well, that and the time. I've been spending a lot of my free time drawing and inking the next issue of my comic. Between my trying to get back into the swing of work after my time off and getting the house back in order after being gone, it seems that each day seems to evaporate a bit.

All of the pages for the comic book are inked and scanned, so now I get to start coloring pages. At an hour a piece, it'll take me around 24 hours to finish. My goal is to get the comic book done by the end of October.

Speaking of comic books, a comic book project I've been working on with Bill (boomerz1) is coming to fruition. Bill and I put together a six page preview called "The Crime Fighter Inquiry: Prologue," which got published in a comic anthology a couple of years back. Since it was published, Bill wrote a first issue and I did the art for a first issue. Bill launched a Kickstarter for it this week. Funding seems to be coming along. Bear Nerd, a bear-centric pop culture website in Brazil, will be interviewing Bill on Saturday about it (and me if I can get the app to work). They interviewed me a couple of years ago about "Grizzly and the Bear Patrol" and they are great guys.

Tonight, I going to start the coloring and am digging through my usual stack of DVD's to occupy my side-eye as I'm working on it. I've been catching up on a British mystery series, "Rosemary & Thyme," about gardening detectives. I saw the premiere of the show when I was traveling through England in 2003 and grew to love it (no pun intended). I have the DVD sets, but they are also on Netflix. I also have a few horror flicks to pick through. More than a few actually.

Thankfully it is nearly Friday. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

It's been a pretty busy weekend, but a great one.

Saturday, I spent a bit of time working on inking the next comic book issue and then went to meet the "Cincinnati MovieBears" for a showing of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. I admit that I wasn't sure how good this movie was going to be. The first Maze Runner flick was so-so, but the reviews promised a lot of action, which is a good draw for the bears. And it didn't disappoint. I won't run through the story, but it definitely was action-packed. Overall, it was better than the first one and most of the attending crew seemed to enjoy it. After the movie, we went to a restaurant, ate too much greasy food, and ogled the hot bearded guys working or eating the restaurant.

Sunday, Derek (_decibel_) and I braved downtown Cincinnati to go to the Cincinnati Comic Expo. It was rough getting down there as the comic expo was going on, Oktoberfest on Fountain Square was going on, and there was a Cincinnati Bengals game that day too. So parking and traffic was horrible and the parking costs elevated.

However, getting to the Expo after lunch was easy and fun. We walked around to see the stuff available and watch the cosplay folks running around. We got some tee-shirts, comic books, and a poster or action figure or two. Overall, it was entertaining. We starting taking some goofy photos here and there. I posted a few on Flickr. You can see the set by clicking on the photo below:


In Original Packaging - Click for the Photo Set
Now we go back to work. Fun fun fun. Weekends just go by so fast.

Friday after work, the first thing I did once I got home was take a three-hour nap. I was beat. And then I got up and mowed my yard. I was back to bed reasonably early and fell asleep without trouble, proof that the week has worn me out.

Week one of sixteen went well overall, with some serious ups and downs. One of the things that made it so long was all the afterwork social stuff I did because of the conference I was attending in town. Every night, except for Tuesday, was taken up with happy hours and dinners. While I really enjoyed it all, I really just wanted to crash this weekend.

Of course, I can rarely do that. I woke up this morning and ran 3.2 miles, which felt good. After cleaning up, I went to lunch and met a buddy to catch a matinee of Ex Machina.


I thought it was a pretty good flick. A computer programmer wins an office lottery to spend the week with his boss, a rich computer guru who invented the most-used search engine of the time. When he gets to the boss' remote estate, he finds he's been selected to help determine the awareness of his boss' latest creation, an artificial intelligence called Eva. As the young programmer evaluates Eva, he learns that she is more than she seems and so is his boss. I enjoyed the movie, but not sure it's something I'd watch over and over again. I do like the bearded Oscar Isaac, who plays the boss Nathan, as he's easy on the eyes. However, I do wonder if I'd find him so hot clean shaven.

The rest of the afternoon was spent tie shopping, grocery shopping, cleaning house, doing laundry, and catching up on my DVR (i.e. "Criminal Minds," "iZombie," and "The Flash").

Maybe I'll get more rest tomorrow.

I took the day off from work today. After a haircut and a Thai food lunch, I came home and took a nap. Yeah, not an exciting day, but I'll take it.

Tonight, while doing some drawing and a bit of writing for the next issue of my comic, I turned on the Apple TV and watching a couple of movies on YouTube. I am actually surprised how many full movies are on the website, some of them are fun TV movies that have never been released on DVD. The theme for the evening seemed to be "Horror Movies on a Plane."

I rewatched "7500", a 2012 film about a ghostly force that gets turned loose on a Transpacific flight. It has only had a very limited release in the US after being shelved by CBS Films for years. It's not a bad movie by any stretch, but for some reason it hasn't been released on DVD here yet. The full flick on YouTube is in English, but has Spanish subtitles.

The second movie was one that scared the crap out of me as a kid. I rewatched "The Ghost of Flight 401", a 1978 TV movie about the real-life crash of Flight 401 in the Everglades back in the early 1970s, and the supposed hauntings of various flights where salvaged parts from the crashed plane had been used. It starred Ernest Borgnine as the ghost along with a long list of 1970s popular actors.

While the movies were playing, I drew the following cartoon. I have seen so many horror movies in my lifetime, that I can honestly say a large number of them from the 1980s to present usually has a variation of this character in them.