Archive for ‘Comics’
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I realize that comics about the weather are the equivalent of slow, small-talk at parties, but hey, one of the reasons that Slightly Off-Topic is so that I can vent at the inconveniences and “r”-tards of the world, and at the moment, winter is providing plenty of both! To the people of Ann Arbor, I would like to make something perfectly clear.Salt is very, very abundant on this planet. While it is true that the State of Michigan ran out of salt. It is not because salt is unavailable. It is because prior to winter, the state makes a semi-educated WAG on the amount of salt they need, purchase said amount of salt, and spend any remaining monies on
kewpie dolls or some such. In this case, they guessed badly and ran out.
This should not, by any means, be taken to mean that there is no salt available.
Let me repeat for clarity:
This should not, by any means, be taken to mean that there is no salt available.
I assure you that if you walk in to Kroger or Meijer or Ace or virtually any commerce center in Ann Arbor, you will find the same salt that has been on sale all year for about $4 for a 30-pound bag. Really. I, myself, bought a new bag yesterday, and my sidewalk is a shining example of non-icy goodness. Christ, if my brothers and I had ever let our sidewalks get as bad as you folks are routinely leaving yours, my father (Leon) would have left our backsides blistered for a week!
It’s kind of a social contract here guys. You own a home in a town. The public sidewalk passes through said property, and you are expected to keep it clean. Heck, considering how litigious this country has become of late, I’m surprised that fear of lawsuits isn’t enough to get you outside and cleaning up your walks. Just because the city does a terrible job on the streets doesn’t mean that you should ignore the sidewalks.
Maybe you’re not ignoring them though. As a non-home-owner, maybe I am simply unaware of a game currently underway in town. Maybe there is a prize for deepest skull-crash induced sidewalk cavity or for most artistic blood-spatter. Or maybe Nike is quietly paying people off to ignore there walks in order to push their latest extreme sport: Winter Walking! For whatever reason, such behavior has to stop now before someone (you can read that as “me”) gets seriously hurt. Thank you…
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Sadly this is only a mild exaggeration. I was walking between labs on campus when I felt the pants slip and go down. Happily there weren’t too many people and none I knew personally. It was outside so I was wearing my winter coat which is longish…goes down to mid-thigh, so it’s not like my tighty-whiteys were on display for God and country, but there is no way to grab your pants up and walk away gracefully…
Dieting has been on my mind a lot lately. I’m quite good at dieting. Most fat folk are. We know all about the nutritional values of food. What’s a good choice;what’s a bad choice. There is a tendency, however, to reach a point where you don’t care anymore…it seems to me that that is the main struggle in dieting.
I have been told all my life that I was overweight, so I really didn’t worry about it when I started to gain weight. That was simply the way I was. However, upon reflection, those comments were almost certainly untrue:
So is it the fault of those that told me for all those years that I was too heavy? Certainly not. I’m the one who put burger to mouth and cheese to fries. I chose not to care, and I have the waistline to prove it:
This picture is about a year old, and I’ve walked over 700 miles since then, so I’m not quite that bad, but still fat. I’ve been dropping weight. The pants mentioned above which decided to take a spontaneous trip to my ankles were already two sizes smaller than my previous trousers, so things are going well enough, but I find I’ve reached that point where my motivation has run its course. Usually this is the point where I just chuck it all and watch my weight cruise back up, but I think I’d rather not. I’ve come to the not-too-startling realization that being fat sucks! How to relight the fire of motivation then? A livejournaller I read has been speaking a lot about her success with the Beck Diet Solution
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I probably won’t last through the night, so I’m setting these words down for posterity. People need to know…they need to know the truth. Unlike what is being reported, the Great Michigan Salt Riots were not the result of a random act of violence. Rather it was a deliberate act of rebellion by a tired people pushed too far, and it all started in Ann Arbor. I was witness to the spark that set fire to a state…
The winter of 2008 had been harder and produced more snow than anyone could have reasonably imagined. There were rumors circulating that the state of Michigan had run out of salt, but when the morning of March 3rd dawned bright and sunny, rapidly melting away all the snow from the previous storms, the people were relieved, believing the worst of winter was behind them.
March 4th, however, held a surprise. Another storm formed in the Midwest and set itself to strike Ann Arbor. By the evening rush hour, the snow was falling and freezing hard as it hit the ground. By 8pm, the roads were treacherous. By 6am, another five inches of ice and snow had been dropped on the roads. Ann Arbor, as always, was late to begin plowing, and by the morning commute, plows had begun clearing only the major roadways. Every public school in the county had shut down, and the major highways were blocked with accidents.
Commuters braving the roads would get stuck in turns as their tires lost traction or would find themselves sliding into the curbs or, even worse, other drivers. In a last ditch effort, the city loaded the salt trucks with sand to provide traction. However, they failed to take into account the rain of the previous days…wet sand doesn’t fall from the salt spreaders…
It was at the bus stop at the corner of Birch Hollow and Stone School. Five, maybe six people were gathered in the frigid morning air waiting for a bus that was hopelessly late. The conversation started innocently enough…simply remarking on the year’s record-breaking snowfall. Soon, however, the conversation turned to Ann Arbor’s continued ineptitude when it came to winter road management. The refusal to plow any roads when less than five inches of snow fell, the wasteful dumping of copious amounts of salt on roads when the temperature was too low for the salt to be effective and the near impassibility of many streets due to the potholes…testimony to the inability the road crew to build and maintain a road capable of withstanding even the mildest winters.
The anger in the crowd was a palpable, growing thing. When the bus was twenty minutes late and the group grew tired of standing in snow covering their ankles, they began to look for a suitable focus for their anger. When the next sand truck drove by without spilling enough sand to stop the car behind it from sliding into the curb at the bus stop, the group’s anger transformed from spark to action. The truck was pulled over and the driver thrown from the cab. The group piled onto the truck throwing sand on the road by hand as they headed towards City Hall. More and more residents pulled into line behind the truck, though whether they intended to join the rebellion or were just grateful for a path with traction, we’ll never know. What we do know is that City Hall burned that day and the news and flames spread rapidly to the surrounding cities until the flames could be seen throughout the entire state.
As for me, I made my way back home to protect my wife and child…but my neighbors know of my dedication to Alton Brown. I’ve hidden my family in the basement, but the neighbors…they’re coming…they’re coming for the Kosher salt…
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So that’s why there was no comic last week, but no, we didn’t actually visit the Chocolate Shop. We generally find it best not to go drinking when driving our only child about 300 miles for the day and then driving her back. Yes…I’m pretty sure that was covered in Parenting 101 (which, for the record, is not a course offered at Purdue). We did stroll over to the Triple X (on the hill, but on the level) for a couple of Drew Brees Specials and then spent the rest of the time wandering campus and feeling nostalgic about days gone by.
It’s a weird thing when you start to take your child on trips to see colleges. She’s not out of the house yet, but you can feel it coming. There is a tendency amongst parents to want to throw the breaks on and keep our children from growing up, but there is also an opposite impulse that glories in seeing one’s offspring coming of age. The battle is played out as an eternal tug-o-war across the parental heart, but you can’t actually stop time, so you just keep doing what seems best for your child.
In any case, she was nonplussed with the biomedical engineering presentation, but seemed keen on computer engineering. She may also end up a writer, or a voice actor or…well, time will tell. Until then there are more days at home and more college trips ahead.
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As I’ve heard Howard say on many occasions, "Which part of Schlock Mercenary don’t you understand?" As such, I’ve placed an order for his excellent Rule One t-shirt:
I first met Howard…well…let’s stop right there…
When I say things like I first me Howard, I think it’s important to define my terms. When I discuss meeting or talking with Howard, I’m speaking of when I got to meet, chat with or randomly bump into Novell guru and webcartoonist-extraordinaire Howard Tayler. From his point of view, I suspect it means something slightly different…that is a random interaction with faceless fanboy. Fair enough…
I first met Howard as a Novell rep at Penguicon (the greatest little Linux, Anime, Gaming, Manga, Sci-Fi/Fant convention on the planet). He was the Novell rep tasked with explaining to the crowd the reasons behind Novell’s sudden interest in Linux. It was a great talk (involving sail- vs steamships amongst other things) and interesting enough for me to pop into the other panels I noticed his name attached to (blogging and webcomics) if I recall. I noted with interest that he had created a webcomic called Schlock Mercenary. When I got back to my room that evening, I immediately popped over to his sight and looked at the strip…and I was done. It didn’t strike me as funny.
At the next year’s penguicon, I bumped into Howard in an elevator before one of his panels. It would have been a non-event except for the shocked look on Howard’s face when my daughter darted out of the elevator announcing she was running to the consuite before heading to the anime room to get some caffeinated gum. I believe Howard’s exact words were:
"You letting the kid chew the gum?!?!?" No, actually we weren’t. She loved going to the consuite and hoarding the penguin mints and gum, but she never ate them. She just kept handing them to me at the end of the day. We’ve since talked about the evils of hoarding, but it was worth it as the look on Howard’s face was priceless!
After attending his talks that year, I decided that there had to be more than Schlock than I was getting by simply glancing at a strip every so often, so I clicked on the pages Basic Training link and started to read. Two days later, I had read through the entire archive and was a devotee to the strip. What changed? I realized that Schlock wasn’t about one-liners. I realized that Howard is a storyteller and spins a sci-fi yarn like you wouldn’t believe. This is not to say the strip isn’t funny. It is tremendously funny, but it’s a sci-fi tale first.
At the next Penguicon (I do so LOVE Penguicon), I came prepared to pick up my *autographed* copy of Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management from Howard himself! Lots of panels and a few brief chats…
I missed the next Penguicon, but will be attending this year. Sadly, according to the website, Howard will not…
In any case, I can not recommend Schlock Mercenary to you strongly enough. It is interesting, engaging and fun. Take a moment to check it out, and be sure to wish Howard a happy birthday tomorrow!
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So…it seems there are some jobs even Mike Rowe won’t do. I can’t say I blame him much. It’s been interesting to watch the campaigning thus far…at least from a mudslinging point of view…especially on the democratic side. The two candidates keep oscillating between a love-in and a nagfest. We’ll see how ugly things can get next week, I suppose…can’t wait for that.
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I’m hereby hijacking this comic to vent a little spleen. I am feeling some righteous anger, and I have a rather simple question to ask.
When did everyone become complete self-centered $#!holes?!?!
Okay, I’m on campus this morning crossing between buildings. It was about 40 and bucketing rain yesterday, and of course it is below freezing today, so there is ice everywhere. The sidewalks have been sprayed with liquid de-icer, so they are pretty clear, but because the sidewalks are covered with liquid de-icer, you can’t actually see where the ice patches are.
As I said, I’m crossing between buildings with people passing on either side. I take a single step and hit a patch of ice. BOOM!! I’m on the ground. Now, I’m not a small guy. To see me slip and slam into the ground is a sight to behold. First there is the exciting moment of an impossibly heavy object suspended in mid-air. Next, there’s the thunderous crash as my ponderous frame hits the concrete, followed by the short punctuated sound of the back of my head hitting the sidewalk. Finally, we have the tremors as the sidewalk vibrates from the shock.
In other words, when I go down on a sidewalk full of people, it’s simply not possible that no one noticed.
Not one frickin’ person stopped to help me up. Not one person stopped to check for blood. Not one person even slowed and grunted "Are you okay"? Not one. As I looked up from the ground, I noticed that the person nearest to me didn’t even break stride as he strolled by, and he is one of my clients!!! From a group that we daily bend over backwards to help out.
I’d like to propose an experiment for you guys. This spring, on a nice sunny day, take your bike out to the side of the road and pretend to be changing a flat. You will notice that every cyclist that passes will check on you. Whether they stop and offer to help or just slow and ask if you have everything you need, no cyclist will pass without making sure you are okay. This behavior is so common that it actually gets a bit annoying if you take too much time changing the flat. That is the way cyclist are.
What is the deal on the sidewalks, then? If I see someone go down, I make sure they are okay. It’s common courtesy…or at least I thought it was. I guess it’s uncommon courtesy these days.
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Actually Steve, you needn’t bother. Through a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances, I am a happy iPhone owner. Back in December, my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Not wanting her to blow any money on me, I told her I’d love another home-embroidered shirt. When that answer didn’t fly, I decided to go the opposite route and name something so expensive that she’d get frustrated and move on.
“I’d love an iPhone.”
What my brothers had failed to inform me of, however, was the fact that my mother had decided (for reasons still unknown) to by big presents this year. Lo and Behold, a new iphone was born. Not so clever as I though, apparently.
So, I’ve had a month to play with the thing, and I can say that it is, as of this time, the best phone or pda I have ever used bar none. It’s not perfect, of course, so I’ll begin by running down what I don’t like about it:
- It’s mighty expensive for a phone with a two-year contract.
- The inability to install 3rd party apps without jail breaking it. (The official SDK is supposed to be released this month, however, so perhaps we’ll see some movement here).
- Low storage space. My phone has 8GB. I know a new 16GB model has just been released, but even at 16GB, that’s only about half of my music collection. This situation forces me to do something which I detest: make and manage playlists. In my world, the beauty of an mp3 player is that I can pack everything on it and carry it with me. This is not possible with this small amount of storage. Of course, it’s not an mp3 player. It’s a phone with a fine mp3 player function, and to be fair, it has more storage than any other phone I’ve used, but a man can wish.
- What is the deal with text messages? Am I to believe that a text message is really so much harder on the network than the bandwidth required for voice communication or unlimited data? Why are the iphone plans limited to 50 sms messages a month?
- Edge – I understand that the 3g modems consume a lot of juice and an edge modem was a compromise to provide good battery life, but man does that suck. Think dial-up for the 00′s.
- It gets awful dirty. Actually, that’s a complaint I hear a lot, but I’ve never had a phone that didn’t pick up a tremendous amount of face-goo. Yes, the screen gets dirty…just wipe the damn thing.
The mail client– actually, when I first got the thing, I couldn’t get the mail client to work with my isp, gmail or work. After the latest update, it works perfectly with my isp and gmail. With work it will only download mail (not send). I’d be concerned, but the folks at work state upfront that they can configure two identical machines to remotely access the mail and one will work and one won’t. The problem seems to lie off-phone.- Flash – or the lack thereof. I know apple is a webobjects/ajax group, but flash is the majority stakeholder in the web at the moment, and there is no technical reason for flash not to run on the phone. It was just omitted to push the other tech. Not cool.
- The earbuds – I realize Apple put a lot of R&D into a bud design that would fit the majority of the crowd, but I am one of those folks that they do not fit. They are constantly falling out of my ears, and the only real options for replacements are $99. Yikes.
Okay…that’s the big problems, here’s what I like:
- The. Screen. Is. Gorgeous. – While this is just cosmetics, I’ve never had a screen on a phone or pda with which I was fully satisfied. Either I can’t see it outside or it’s too dim in the dark. The iphone is bright and colorful and clear in any situation I’ve encountered. So much teh pretty.
- The web browser just works (with the exception of flash). Even under opera, I was never satisfied with the browsing capabilities of my old Treo. As long as it doesn’t bump into flash, the safari browser just works and renders the pages accurately.
- The screen blanks when the phone is brought to the face – With my Treo, my cheek was always hitting the mute button on the touchscreen. With the iphone, the screen blanks when you bring it to your face and reactivates when you pull it away (to hang up or use the touchpad). It’s a small feature, but it’s perfect.
- Audio – both on receive and send, it is very, very good.
- Signal – AT&T has improved since I’ve last used them. I get signal (good signal) everywhere including those locations where Verizon failed me.
- WebApps – while I can’t install apps easily, I can point to webapps with this phone, and the developer community is brilliant. I can do everything on this phone that I’ve ever been able to do on a full-fledged pda…more really.
- Which brings me to the wi-fi client….simple and it works. No quirks.
- Silence – there’s a single switch on the side to silence the phone. Brilliant for meetings. No question what the phone is set for.
- Visual voice mail – Okay…I’m not a salesman, so I don’t get tons of voicemail, but I’ve always wondered why we had to go through all the hassles to get voice mail in the past. You know…call this number, enter password, touch 1 to hear voice mail, though 76 to delete, etc, etc. On the iphone, I point to voicemail and hit play. So simple.
- Configurable home screen – I see the apps I want on my home screen and nothing else. How hard was that guys?
I could go on, but I’m not going to. I’ll just say this. When I was a kid, my friend John and I used to talk about computers (this was back in the TRS-80 days and Apple II days) and how one day, we would have something we could hold in our hands and play movies and games and be able to communicate with each other. The iphone is what we imagined. I LOVE this thing….
So no need to send me one, Steve…though actually, Laurie would kill for one! Please Steve…please?
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You should take any Hallmark Holiday with a grain of salt, but it occurs to me that this is the twentieth Valentine’s Day since I started dating the woman who would become my wife. Now, we’ve never given more than lip service (lip service…get it?!?!…*lip* service…) to this holiday, but when faced with such a neatly round number, one should probably do or say something…
Laurie…We met in the drive-thru, and life has kind of been like that ever since…weird but wonderful… It has been suggested to me by numerous folks that we married too young or that we were probably just looking to get married and that it didn’t really matter who was standing at the alter. Well, after all this time, I think it is fair to call “Bunk” on such speculations. I can’t imagine finding a better partner than you. You’ve been there during the thick and thin…and really thin….you survived and thrived in the exile to California…and you didn’t kill me when I dragged you back to the MidWest. You’re the first person I want to see in the morning and the only person I want to snuggle with at night.
[Cheesy Jerry Maguire Reference] You…Complete…Me! (sniffle) [/Cheesy Jerry Maguire Reference]
Basically, I’m not sure what else to say other than “I love you…I always have…oh…and some day we won’t be poor!”
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
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Thus ends our exploration of Michigan’s winter weather. Hopefully the Michigan suits will finally be satisfied that we’ve aptly and accurately displayed the wonders of winter up here in the nation’s mitten….
…or not…
In any case, Brittany and I will be turning our attention away from the forecast for a bit. There are more things to talk about than the weather, after all.
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