Here is that Information about the Twenty-Oughts you Requested

I don't want to hear about how "the decade isn't over" or whatever - we tend to measure decades by the year's tens digit, so deal with it, assholes. ALSO you will have to click on this to read it, obviously.


For me personally, the oughts were pretty alright. I survived (or avoided entirely) the following things:

• A year-and a half of middle school
• Four years of high school
• Four years of college
• 2 moves (within a month of each other)
• 9/11
• The Nintendo Gamecube
• SARS, Birdflu, H1N109, S.A.D.
• 3 Star Wars movies* of varying degrees of awfulness

I GUESS IT ALL WORKED OUT.

Now, it is time to press on, into the future - 2010 (the year we make contact)**


*Episode 2, Episode 3, The Clone Wars
**Robert Zemeckis actually made Contact in 1997

More Information from Airports

What you need to know offhand:

1. I'm at the airport
2. I'm wearing a tie that cost me $3.00
3. It is between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. on Christmas eve
4. etc

Now, I was here (the same airport) three whole days ago, but I did not get to fly home. This is because of a Mistake (or, perhaps, a series of smaller mistakes, the likes of which don't need to be Capitalized). I overslept for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 7:45 on the Monday of this week. I woke up in my bed at 6:26 a.m. that day in front of my computer in a room in which all the lights were still on. I had not planned on falling asleep that night. My reasoning was that, were I to leave for the airport at the time I'd set for myself [5:15 (the math on this is: flight at 7:45 - 1h for security/bag-checking, - 1h to get to the airport via public transportation - 0.5h just-in-case-time = 5:15)] the least-unpleasant approach would be to not fall asleep at all in the first place. The math on this one: staying up until 4 a.m. is almost never terrible, but waking up at 5:15 a.m. - no matter when one falls asleep - is almost always awful.

So, why did I get into bed at all? Because it was really cold, and I have an electric blanket, and I am equally capable of operating a computer in bed as I am at a desk. But then the unthinkable happened, and I fell asleep. In bed.

Now, I was aware of and prepared of this possibility - I had set 3 alarms: one for 4:45, one for 5:00, and one for 5:15. All my bags were packed. I was wearing flight clothes. I was all set. Except that none of these alarms woke me up, and I regained consciousness at 6:26 a.m.

Listen: I can say, with some degree of certainty, that no human has ever so effectively exploded out of a house with a 40-pound roller-board in tow and so gracelessly rocketed down sidewalks that were all in various states (ranging from passable to intolerable) of snow-covered. I walked into the airport terminal at no later than 7:12 (the math on this, just in case you're not doing it in your head: 46 minutes from my bed to the terminal. In snow. From a dead sleep. That's Olympian. But it wasn't enough. It would be another 18 minutes before I reached the front of the baggage drop-off line, at which point I was informed that I was too late the check a bag, and also too late to be on the plane regardless. Sorry. Please go to the line on the right for assistance.

Ok: to the best of my memory I have never, while flying alone, missed a flight. Ever. In over a decade of solo air travel. So, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I liken this experience to Man being cast out of the Garden of Eden. While once I had lived in a perfect world, a world where I always got to where I was going, rarely considering any sort of alternative, a world where airline employees treated me with not-contempt, and where every boarding pass was used and no paper was wasted., now I lived in a wasteland. A Completely Ruined Hellhole.

Oh, the stinking, unbearable shame in having to make my way to the long line for the idiot-moron-degenerates of air travel. The line that, in addition to serving innocent souls whose flights had been canceled also existed for monsters like me who'd missed their flights, and - worst of all - the sort of slug-brained beings who were incapable of checking in for their flights before reaching the airport. Who are these people who don't check-in early? There was a family with about 9 huge bags spread over two huge carts, all dressed in holiday sweaters, forming an impassable human wall within the line. Despite their plans to travel to Bermuda, a trip I can only assume they had planned in advance, they did not bother to check in online, where checked baggage is cheaper and the whole process is less painful. Also, what were they even doing at the counter for domestic flights? Last time I checked (just now, because I wasn't sure) Bermuda is not part of the United States, not even a little bit. They got to go to Bermuda, and, when I got toe the front of the line, was told that I got to go to Cincinnati. In 3 days' time. At 5 in the morning.

So Here I am, finally. And here's what the line for security looked like from somewhere near the middle:


Anyway, Merry Christmas, you'll probably hear from me again before the year is out.

Here is the Most Boring Table in the World

I know short-form image-reliant-punchline-entries like these are what make a hundred teenagers endlessly refresh a hundred tumblrs and twittrs, but here I go, putting on on bloggr. Also damn, I ain't done a thing on this blog in a long old time.

Broadcasting from Home #2

This took longer to get together than I expected. Luckily I never committed to an update schedule.



The end of this story is that my video game console of choice broke two days after I drew this.

P.S. You know about Maslow, right?

Broadcasting from Home #1

Hey. I decided to do a comic for a little while. It's autobiographical, but try to find a better reason than that to dislike it. I hope to do a few, but we all know how I operate.

The real joke here is that Panel 3 has happened at least two more times.

O.H.I.O. (Oh Hey, In Ohio)

Hello again. Attentive readers are no doubt aware that it is occasionally customary for me to report on the happenings in the great state of Ohio when those happenings are available to me first-hand. I don’t suppose it would be right ignore tradition on this trip (we all know how I love traditions), but let me forewarn you: these facts will be hurled into the internet in no particular order and without any real attention to detail. This slapdash-edness can be blamed on both my refusal to imbue such unremarkable fare with a gripping narrative structure, and also on the three four Cuba Libres that have spent the last hour marching across my blood-brain barrier. “Whatever dude,” as the old saying goes.

First: a house down the street from my house was on fire for a little while a couple days ago. The consensus is that this is because lightning was striking everything in the immediate area like crazy, causing a ruckus and upsetting my family's cats (more on them later, probably). My mom and I, not being above the basic human instinct to see and breathe the problems of others free and clear of consequence or attacks of conscience, took a walk down the block to see what we could see.

here smoke can be seen coming from the house

Here is a firefighter


My house (not on fire)

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?

I tried a Fast Food Restaurant for the First Time. For some people this is an unremarkable accomplishment, but some people spend all their time growing out their armpit hair in front of the TV instead of living life (Disclaimer: I also do this, but far less intentionally). I will not tell you the fast food chain I tried for the first time - instead you will find a picture of the item I consumed and you, the astute reader, will guess. This is how fun happens.


IN OTHER NEWS: I just got tired of writing this blog post! All other worthwhile information can be found below, condensed into bullet points for my convenience.

Additional Occurrences

• Got a new suit
• Drew This
• Pictures of Cats

Anyway, I'll be gone in nine hours.

Hello Again/What is On the Internet/My Future Musical Career

Allow me to forego the apologies I frequently make after months or more stretches of blog inactivity. Instead, allow me to direct your attention to something. But first: An introduction.

Like any place on the Internet where lonely people gather, yearning desperately to fill the hedonic vacuums of their lives, Amazon.com has a forum or - more accurately - a number of forums. I'm not going to bother explaining the organization of these forums because I do not know how many sub-forums there are, or how many people are on them, or what the thread counts are. All these statistics probably amount to a bunch, a lot, and too many, respectively, which is good enough for the purposes of this post. Now, Amazon's forums exist primarily as a location where customers can discuss products, an idea that sounds wholly reasonable when taken at face value. Amazon is a massive retailer of everything, asking questions of other people who own a product you're considering the purchase of makes sense, informed buying is wonderful, etc etc. The trouble is, of course, that no internet forum ever operates as it was intended to by those who arranged for its existence, like everything in the universe designed by Man or God internet forums function briefly before entropy takes over and destroys them entirely. So far I've told you nothing you don't already know.

But what if I told you that, while trying to compile a list of TV shows to order for a library, I found a thread on the Amazon.com customer discussion forums that has Changed My Life Entirely? I am telling you this right now. Let me show you:


Go ahead and click on that picture if you're having trouble reading it. The thread is here.

Okay.

Now, imagine an enormous stage at the center of a stadium filled with roaring, bloodthirsty Metal fans. Rising from behind the stage, 40-feet high on a projection screen, the image of a dog that is completely and unrepentantly on fire. A disembodied announcer's voice echoes off every surface of the colossal structure, until its words are barely decipherable to the thunderous throng in the bleachers: "Ladies and gentlemen: DOG CREMATION!"



And so it is settled. I will make the most popular metal band with a name originating from an Amazon.com customer forum ever. There are a few challenges I must overcome, it's true. An abbreviated list of them:

• Listen to a lot of metal music (difficulty: medium)
• Learn and understand the differences between the various Metal sub-genres (difficulty: hard)
• Find someone who can play the drums and who has his own drum set and who isn't hopelessly stupid (difficulty: Sisyphean)
• Buy a cool-looking guitar (difficulty: easy)
• Learn to play the cool-looking guitar really really really well (difficulty: impossible)
• Write awesome guitar stuff (difficulty: easy, probably)
• Write lyrics about the cost of setting a dog on fire (difficulty: N/A - it is already done, I just have to find the .txt file)
• Become enormously famous (difficulty: ?)

PROJECT DEADLINE: 7/14/2010.

The 3rd Annual Al Pacino Versus Robert Deniro Weekend

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!

AND

IN

All-Day Saturday at the Aerie Theater*

Lineup may include (in no particular order):

• Raging Bull
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Taxi Driver
• Scarface
• Mad Dog and Glory
• Glengarry Glen Ross
• Casino
• Scent of a Woman
• Cape Fear

Lineup will absolutely not include (because they suck):

• Heat
• Righteous Kill

Actual lineup will be much shorter due to the number of hours in a day, and the human body's natural inability to sit around for more than, like, eight straight hours doing nothing but staring at a screen.

If you're reading this, you're invited, but unless you're one of a very, very exclusive few (read: two) you're almost certainly going to fucking miss it god damn you.

p.s. If you're dying for a print of one or some of the posters I made then yes you can have one.




*this is just a room in my house




[UPDATE]

THIS YEAR'S WINNER IS AL PACINO. AL PACINO WINS THIS YEAR. TAKE THAT, ROBERT DENIRO.

The Final Lineup and awards for This Year:

• Dog Day Afternoon (AWESOME)
• Raging Bull (SPOUSAL ABUSETASTIC)
• Scarface (WAY FULL OF CUSSES)
• Mad Dog and Glory (BILL MURRYEST)
• Glengarry Glen Ross (HAD KEVIN SPACEY?)
• Taxi Driver (BEST "ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?")
  

RSPCTU2

Remember: May is Respect U2 Month. So are June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, and April.

Now I Have Everything I Need

Maybe you'll hear more about this later on.

Notes I would Have Appreciated 8 Months Ago

HEY BRO THAT'S GREAT NEXT TIME LEAVE THIS NOTE ON OUR DOOR THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE A PARTY [SOMETIME LAST JULY], AND THEN SPEND THE NEXT ENTIRE DURATION OF YOUR TENANCY NOT BEING AN INSUFFERABLE, OBNOXIOUS, USELESS HUMAN BEING. TELL YOUR IDIOT FRIENDS, TOO.

love
fuck you,
MD

Science Corner #2 - Airplane Edition

now you know.

Four Things Taped to One Piece of Paper

I want to make it clear that I did not write the two-item list at the top, though I know the circumstances under which it was written. You don't get to know though - you get to believe that it's a truncated list of the major fears of a self-aware animal on the bottom of the food chain, because that's what it feels like to me.

Imagination Station #1

Do you ever use your imagination? I do, and here's what happened when I did a few days ago.

Science Corner #1

Science Corner is a new feature. You will learn things you didn't know before.


Science Corner is a new feature. You will learn things you didn't know before. Expect them on Fridays.

A Return to Normalcy

This blog has a problem. The problem is not the fact that it is rarely updated and generally neglected, but that its content of late - what little there has been - has strayed from the original themes and motifs that made this blog worthwhile to begin with: Information, and Terrible Ideas Drawn on Notebook Paper. And Airshow Disasters. I hope to rectify this misstep as quickly and effectively as possible starting today, April 3rd 2009, a day that is rainy and sucky.
Please consider yourself Informed.

Take That, 3-Dog Night

What?!

And yes I realize that posts like these are more conducive to the short-form world of Twitter, but I'm not ready to abandon all my values.

A Comic From The Past

As is standard for a Saturday night, I was rummaging around through old folders and notebooks in the cabinet of my desk when I came across four panels of information that were generated approximately 360-some odd days ago, but remains relentlessly relevant even today. I don't believe I've shared this with the internet - a cursory glance through this site's archives yields nothing - so while it's certainly not my best work, I think the last panel alone is strong enough to warrant its dissemination. Now, a year after it was drawn, it is robbed of the context that would have been essentially meaningless to all but two people aside from myself. This improves matters, I think.

What Movies Did I Watch Last Week?

Starting from February 14th and ending an hour and a half or so ago, at 11:59 pm on the night of Saturday 2/21. I am comfortable saying that this is the highest density movie watching week I've had, moreso than any week during the contest of summer 2007.

52. Casablanca 2/14 *****
53. Alien trespass 2/15 (t) ***
54. It came from outer space 2/15 (t) ***
55. Chrysalis 2/15 (t) *
56. Logan's run 2/15 (t) ****
57. Runaway 2/15 (t) ****
58. Alien Raiders 2/15 (t) ***
59. The thing from another world 2/15 (t) ***
60. Repo Man 2/16 (t) ****
61. Invasion of the body snatchers 2/16 (t) ****
62. Killer Klowns from outer Space 2/16 (t) ***
63. Transformers 2/16 (t) *
64. I married a monster from outer space 2/16 (t) *
65. Stark Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn 2/16 (t) ***
66. Fanboys (t) 2/17 *
67. The Enforcer 2/17 ***
68. Sudden Impact 2/18 ****
69. The Dead Pool 2/19 ****
70. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot 2/20 **
71. Midnight Meat Train 2/20 ****
72. Owning Mahowny 2/21 ****
73. The Class 2/21 (t) ***
74. Angel Heart 2/21 ****

Total: 23

The numbers indicate both the order in which the movies were watched, and act as a running tabulation of movies I've viewed since January 1st 2009. Did I mention the one-a-day-average-movie-challenge-09 here? I don't think I did, though now I have seeing as it's exactly what it sounds like. Star ratings are on a scale of 1-5, and a "(t)" indicates that the movie was watched in a theater. Numbers 53-65 were watched in the span of 24 hours at the Boston Sci-Fi Marathon.

Now you Know.

What Did the Weather do Somewhere Else? or Places I Used to Live Keep Getting Fucked Up

You may recall (or, more likely, not recall) that in June of last year the city in which I spent the first (almost) ten years of my life got terribly flooded on. Now, as of a couple days ago, a more recent ex-town of mine has been Attacked by God Himself. Listen: part of me - the sensible, higher-level-reasoning part of me - is glad that I was not still around when swirling laser-winds of death descended from the heavens upon part of my old neighborhood and (more lethally) on some bullshit town down south that I'd never heard of and don't care about. There is, however, a strong nagging sense of having missed out on one of the Main Things that will probably happen around there for awhile, as well as the knowledge that I could have a way better tornado story than my current-and-only "one time when I was 17 I cut class and drove home from school in the violent downpour of a supercell while a wall cloud was lowering just half a mile away, and my mom was pissed at me for 2 reasons when I got home."

Anyway, Please enjoy the rest of this post, which is comprised entirely of pictures from my old neighborhood, a kind of place I don't like having to explain to people I've met since graduating high school, since being honest about it usually winds up in desperately and carefully apologizing for its gated-communityness, its attachment to a golf course, and all the things such a format and juxtaposition bring to mind.

photos courtesy of Brenda(?) who emailed them to my mom, and who needs to turn off that timestamp feature because we live in a digital fucking age in which metadata renders neon orange save-the-dates wildly obsolete.

Operation Thermal Underwear is Under Way

Walking home from work today I realized that I don't carry out enough missions in my life. By "mission" I don't mean like, piling into a van with a bunch of my too-smiling friends and driving down to some country that sucks with the intention of digging a well and then putting up a 200 ft. tall cross right next to the well to Remind People about God or Whatever. I mean missions like carrying out objectives and Taking Care of Business. While walking it also occurred to me that long underwear would have been a fantastic addition to my outfit, because I couldn't feel my legs and the outside temperature made me wonder what walking on the surface of Neptune would be like (hint it would be impossible because your legs would break under your own weight).

Net Result: Operation Thermal Underwear (not to be confused with Operation Thunderbolt which is definitely Badassier).

Objectives

• Wear thermal underwear (pants and shirt)
• Do not freeze to death anytime soon
• Tell people how great the first objective is going for me (example: say to someone "I am wearing thermal underwear. It is going pretty great, trust me")
• Really, seriously, honestly Do Not Freeze to Death.

I am going to make a little design for a button or something later on, to be awarded to people who survive the mission.

The First two-and-a-half Hours of 2009 - What you need to know

1) it is 2009 - this is important for reasons not worth going into here.
2) it is 8 degrees in the area where I am. Apparently when variables like wind and awfulness are factored in the outside world feels like -22 degrees. This is hard even to begin to understand, especially if you come from a time period or society that lacks the concept of negative numbers.
3) about 16,000 people worldwide have died since it became 2009 in the EST timezone.
4) I was wrong about a number of things in my predictive post regarding 2008. This included what the best movie of the year would be (I said Brothers Bloom which was pushed back until 2009 after first simply being delayed twice - shit, this year's best movie was, of course, Wall•E), the best video game (I guessed the most recent iteration of Smash Brothers when in fact it was Braid), and I was wrong about how I would abandon this blog - instead I just started that other one. What was I right about? I predicted we would elect a new president - check, and I was right about the best album.
5) That's about it