Back from Turkey day at the inlaws house in the mountains of Julian. I really love it up there. Beautiful woods, nice quaint village with the best apple pie, candy store, and used/rare book store you can find. Being able to see every star in the sky at night... Top it off with the fact that it's the only place I know of in California that you can buy Huckleberry jam and syrup... well that's the kicker.

Even with the kids being complete hooligans at times, it was good. Thought for sure we were going to wake up Sunday morning to a couple feet of snow, but it didn't happen. Thank god. Our Mazda mini-van is ill-equipped to handle a drive back down twisty roads covered with snow and icy and a sheer drop-off on one side!

Did some sketching, read books, played video games with the older kids. All in all nothing productive, which was just fine :). Only downside was I realized when we were halfway there I had left my ambien at home, so getting to sleep was a challenge.

Well, no... not the only downside. The real downside was that my father-in-law wasn't with us. Last Thanksgiving, we had all of my wife's side of the family together, which was a lot of fun and really enjoyable because we don't get to see her brother, his wife and their kidsas often as we'd like.

The monday after thanksgiving, my father in-law choked on a piece of steak while at lunch, and went without oxygen long enough to cause significant brain damage. While he came out of the coma and could occasionally have conversations, we knew what was coming. When he died this spring, it wasn't a surprise but it was heartbreaking nonetheless. Spending our first big family holiday hurt, and you couldn't help but feel his abscence.

Well, now that I've turned this into a dour blog entry... I hope everyone had a good holiday with their loved ones and that you had much to be thankful for this year. Best to you all.

Woke up Saturday morning with the most horrific headache I can ever remember having. Reduced me to a whimpering, vomiting mess. It was bad enough that my wife actually thought about calling 911 for fear i'd had an aneurysm. Felt fine, if weak, by the end of the day, and was ok Sunday but damn... I do hope I never have that experience again.

In regards to my 'chicken little' assessment of the games biz, I'll try and post that sometime soon. Got some other things that have to get done first.

I will be out from Wed night through Sunday, so no strip on Friday due to the holiday.

ok, falling asleep at the keyboard here.

Have a good week with your families and loved ones.

My lovely wife was feeling like crap Sunday night, and Monday during the day, so I was a little worred about us going up to see The Panic Channel on Tuesday. Esp. considering how miserable she was Monday. However, come Tuesday, even though she's not feeling 100%, we make the trek to Hollywood, see the show, and get back into OC around 2am. That's still kinda early for me. I usually get to bed around 3-4am. Chris, however, goes to bed at around 9-10pm. So combine that with not feeling well, and let cook.

End result, last night she was REALLY sick. Fever, massive body aches, chills, the works, and I felt like crap for hauling her out in the world while she was sick. But does she complain to me about it? Bitch about "If we hadn't gone...", or anything like that?

No she doesn't.

My wife, in a word, rocks.

On an unrelated topic, I'm going to write up my predictions for the game industry over the next 2 years and why I think a lot of us will find ourselves out of work.

On that cheerful note, I'm off to bed. early, for a change. Have a good weekend everyone.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know there's no strip today. I have a very good reason however. The wife and I had to drive up to Hollywood to see The Panic Channel at the Dragonfly.

As evidence of this I give you Dave Navarro's blog- and Steve Isaacs (the vocalist) - who were both kind enough to give me shout-outs. Look at the entries from the 17th. Thanks guys.

TPC is flat out fucking great. Last night's show was well worth the hell-drive from OC to hollywood and back. They will be playing at the Key Club on Sunset in Hollywood on Dec 2nd. I highly suggest if you are in the greater LA area that you check them out. This is musical history in the making, and getting to see them in venues this size, with music this good... you don't get opportunities like this very often.

Aise from their originals, their cover of Led Zepplin's Dazed and Confused completely owned all comers. Just transcendant.

DM strip on Friday, I'm gonna try and sleep tonight.

Took a couple days off last week to spend time at home since my mom was in town visiting. Went bowling with the kids, saw the Incredibles (fucking astoundingly good), spent the time just trying to mentally recharge my creative batteries. Over the last month, I really felt like I 'hit the wall', creatively running on autopilot. I could still draw, make models, do digital work, etc, but didn't feel that all-consuming fire that compells me to make stuff. The drive that overrides things like sleep and hunger.

Worked through some of it, got some work done on comic and movie scripts, tried to distance myself creatively from making any visual art, just to see if that sparks things and it seems to have helped.

Couple of upcoming possible projects have helped free up the creative logjam as well... One thing I've discovered is that I do better when I have too many things going. My time management gets better because it has to. I don't have the luxury of just fucking around.

Creatively, they also seem to feed off each other. If I'm doing some happy kids comic, then my paintings get darker, more bold, or my CG work gets more experimental. Seems to be a kind of creative yin and yang pressure cooker kind of thing.

ok, so... THAT was a shabby analogy.

Have a good week everyone.

Interesting purchases this weekend...

Went to Costco and resisted buying a bunch of stuff I really wanted to, but could not justify the expense considering I was there with the fam to buy groceries.

However...

They had The Creature from the Black Lagoon on DVD. This release is part of Universal's 'Monster' series, which now includes the Invisible Man and the Mummy as well. Creature is my fave old school horror film.. Just love the shots, the lighting for the underwater sequences, the overall vibe. Tried to get it a while back, but it was out of print on DVD and the cost on ebay was like 70 bucks. I like it, but not THAT much. Glad I waited... the transfer on this is clean (sadly not letterbox :( ) and it has both sequels included as part of the 'extras'. Rock!

At Target today, as I'm in the checkout line, I see these odd looking 2-liter bottles labelled Holiday Spice Pepsi Cola. Now, I drink a LOT of Diet Pepsi and love DP Vanilla and Wild Cherry so I figure what the hell I'll pick it up and try it. I love this stuff! Cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg cola... yum. Considering I smoke cloves, this seems like it was made for me. Except for the fact that it's seasonal and it's not in diet :/.

And everyone... go out right now and buy the Complete Peanuts Volume 2. Fucking amazing, brilliant stuff. Even moreso when you think of the fact that this stuff was coming out in 1952-3.

On the bad side of things, Steve Isaacs (singer for The Panic Channel) had his house robbed. They didn't get his guitars, but got his comps. fucking assholes. Steve's an inspiration in his dealing with this in an astoundingly positive way. Me, I hope Karma impacts them like a runaway freighter. But, I'm kinda unevolved that way ;)

Hope everyone has a good week and I want to give a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout to my lovely wife :) She is absolutely the best! :D

Evidence the world is fucking crazy, Part I

Small piece of background: I have a degenerative nerve disorder of some kind that Dr.s really can't figger out. Result is that over the last four years I've gone from very occasionally having pain in my left foot to currently having my lower left leg and foot in constant pain, even with painkillers. So, as part of my treatment, I have a pain management Dr. that I have to go through. ok, background bit done, let's see what bearing this has in the world being completely wholesale, costco-sized, ten-for-a-dollar nuts.

Over the last two weeks I've had massive pain spikes. the kind that prohibit sleeping, period. So, rather than exceed my pain med prescription (because if I do that, they will not refill early as part of the 'non-abuse contract' that you have to sign prior to treatment) I call and make an emergency appointment to see about getting a cortizone injection, or SOMETHING to help with this. The office is cool and gets me in the next day.

So, next day, get in to the examining room and the Dr. comes in. First thing he says 'so did your guys win?' and I sit there baffled, thinking he's talking sports (which I don't pay attention to) and say 'excuse me?' He responds with 'the election, did your guys win?'

Now, in the back of my head a red light goes off thinking this is innappropriate to be asking me prior to treatment, but I ignore it and say 'well the presidental is a red devil, blue devil equation that due to the electoral system I have little to no control over, so I was more concerned on the state initiatives and how those did.' He presses me for whether I was 'happy' with the outcomes, and I say 'yeah some of them... I was happy the stem cell one went through'

He stiffens up and says "well, you shouldn't be!" He then starts talking about the 'real' financial cost of the proposition, and the fact that better results come out of VC-funded research, that there's no checks and balances or public accountibility in the measure... and I'm listening, very interested because he's a Dr. and I'm interested in what a member of the medical community has to say.

Until...

He segues from the financial aspect of it into the "well, you know what the initative is actually FOR, right?" and proceeds to tell me that my perceptions are completely wrong. That the proposition is actually for human cloning (which it specifically says in the proposition that it is NOT for) and that they are going to create embryonic clones, which they will then place in 'host' women, which will carry the babies to almost full term, at which point the babies will be removed prematurely and their kidney, for example, will be removed and transplated into an adult, killing the baby.

Now...

at this point, I'm flipping out.

2 reasons. One this guy is giving me medical treatment. giving me medications to use off-label, such as epilepsy meds, because it 'may help' the nerve issue. He's recommending these kind of things and yet is spouting the kind of removed-from-reality extreme xtian fundie boogeyman scenarios that you associate with Jimmy Swaggert, not a medical professional who is supposed to be guided by science. Second, due to the 'non-abuse contract' this guy is my SOLE source for pain meds. If he doesn't auth my refill, I have NO pain meds and can't get any more. At lease not without changing every Dr. I have which is not a quick and/or easy prospect. So, I've got this frozen smile on my face, nodding politely, freaking out internally. I say "ok, well I'm experiencing a lot of pain beyond normal" and he finally gets on to the treatment thing, but his disposition to me has notablly changed.

So we're going through things and he's getting on me saying that I've been on pain meds too long (which I agree with) and that I need to get off them (which I also agree with). I tell him this and say "look we have a short term issue and long term issue. Short term, I'm in massive pain, long term we need to find the cause of this, and I need YOUR help getting written referrals that I can give my insurance company so I can fight with them to get authorization for a new neuro and othro Dr."

His reaction is to blow this off saying I don't need him to do that, that I can fight the insurance company and they will eventually cave in. Now, having had too much experience with insurance companies in trauma treatment experiences I'm thinking "you are fucking WRONG asshole" but keep my mouth shut, because, again, if I piss him off I have no meds.

He then launches back on the pain med abuse tirade and how hydrocodone is the most abused drug in america (I'm on Norco, which is like Vicodin's big angry cousin with a steel pipe and a bad temper) and I say I know this, and that's how you end up with situations like Courtney Love and Rush Limbaugh.

He FREEZES and starts saying "well Rush had REAL PAIN he needed to deal with, the only thing he did wrong was choose to treat himself rather than go through a Dr. He has to do that show day in and day out, no matter what! So, that's why he did what he did!"

And, pain meds or no, I can't keep my mouth shut. I say "Ummm, look... I'm in charge of the entire creative department at my company, I work 12-14 hours a day, and I have four kids that I am a very active parent with and spend any time I am not working with THEM. I get four hours sleep a night MAX, so sorry I don't buy that Rush with his 3 hour radio show a day NEEDED to do, or was right in doing what he did."

Things got very uncomfortably silent and the Dr. told me "Look you have until Dec. 30th to show me that you are getting some kind of medical progress on this issue, or I'm not going to treat you (read: give pain meds) anymore" What that translates to? *I* have to find a new ortho and neuro and I have to get my insurance, an HMO, to agree to cover it or I pay out of pocket. HE will not write referrals or help in this matter at all because it is 'not his place'.

I finally got the refill, so I'm good for 20 days, and am now calling my insurance company to report this guy and start the long process of getting auth'd for another pain treament group.

I honestly was freaked and in shock for the entire day. I still cannot believe it actually happened. It was like a bad satire of the boogyman that everyone holds uyp as the worst aspects of the right, incarnate as a living being, and HE'S my Dr.

jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick.

So, that's why there's no strip today. I'll try and make up for it over the weekend.

Comic will be delayed until tomorrow. compiling some stuff on my system and I need every CPU cycle I can get so as not to have it keep me up all night as I wait to see if it'll crash (not unlike the waiting to see the results of the election, come to think of it).

Brief bit on the election... when it was announced that Orange County CA (where I live) was going 'electronic' for the next elections, I felt a shudder of fear snake down my spine. Not because I'm a luddite or anything... I mean I develop software for a living for god's sake... however, because I develop software i know how buggy technology can be and more to the point, is likely to be in its early incarnations.

So, I go to vote, and make my selections on the ballot, and as I get the 'review' page at the end I notice something very disturbing. Three of the choices/selections are not the ones I made. This wasn't a matter of user error, I input the correct thing. It simply chose to change my seection. I stepped back through the process two times before it "took".

Now, I know you have to look at these things, but I immediately thought of all the technophobes and old fogies out there who wouldn't do so, and would unwittingly cast an incorrect vote. I brought this up with the polling location supervisor and his reaction was 'well, the right selection was cast in the end, right?' not getting my point. He didn't see the need in telling people as they approached the booths to double-check their results prior to hitting the red 'cast ballot' button.

Afterwards, I reported this to the state elections board, the news outlets etc, and found that, hey, guess what? This is happening quite a bit.

But this is a much better way to go, right guys?

*sigh*

So, survived Halloween in one piece. Really just wanted to go to bed tonight, but figgered I owed everyone staying awake and getting a strip done. For those of you who are curious, here's my eldest daughter in the costume that I spent approx 28 hours straight working on...



Finished Navarro's "don't try this at home" today, started it yesterday. Good read, but disturbing. If I get a chance or free moment I'll go into greater details on my thoughts on it. Started The Complete Peanuts Vol. 2 tonight. 'Bout halfway through it and I just have to say... He was a genius back in the 50s. The strip is biting, almost caustic at times and really gives you an insight into why it went from being a comic strip to being a worldwide icon (to the detriment of the writing and art, IMNECTHO).

More later. Have a ton of shit to do tomorrow and it's already 2am.