Reel 3 Presents

I can't be more nervous

2011-03-10T00:52:00.003-05:00

I'm finally getting it done. It's been years but it's the right thing to do at this point. Interestingly, no man my age will discuss the topic with me. One of my colleagues has just started a new franchise with another woman, in what he alleges is a complete set up. Even he won't consider the option.

Something about a vasectomy is taboo amongst men. I think we're afraid of it's affects on our manhood. Let's face it, at this point in my life I'm damn sure of where I stand on that topic and it isn't as an alpha male. I've got no intentions of populating the Earth with my own private, home grown army.

A little holiday gift

2010-12-15T00:20:00.003-05:00

This year's been hectic.

I realize the previous post looked like a countdown was going to take place but I didn't have time to upload the content onto this here blog. Instead, all of it was loaded onto my facebook account. As few people read this blog it made more sense at the time anyways.

We recently had our directors and SVPs meet everyone in what was nothing like the above comic. Yet, I couldn't help but feel like a part of what is found above was present. It makes sense when you restructure that people lose their jobs. I can see how the intention isn't there to actually fire someone, but the need for it is present.

Anywho, I moved into a better place now so I should be able to produce again. However, with the revolution taking place as mentionned above I don't know what time can be allocated to humor.

38 days left. Movies to watch during Halloween: Hour of the Wolf

2010-09-24T07:45:00.000-04:00

Hour of the Wolf (1968)
This is Ingmar Bergman's only dip into the the gothic horror genre and he delivers some seriously creepy imagery. The film tells the story of a couple who have retreated to their cottage. There, the husband, a painter, begins to confess to his pregnant wife different memories. Reality begins to slowly peel away as another family invites the couple over to their castle home not to far away.

The image of the boy slowly going below the water surface is one of the creepiest images I've seen and a particular point towards the end gave me goosebumps. There is a certain vulnerability when a woman is pregnant and the only person to care for her is a man having a breakdown. The whole arc of fear can be seen in Liv Ullmann's eyes. She is the witness to the most terrifying thing: the psychological breakdown of a protector.

This is a real treat for a gothic horror movie as the film is incredibly well shot and framed which is essential in a gothic horror film. It's not an easy film to access however.

39 days left. Double Take Movies to watch before Halloween: The thing from another World/ The Thing

2010-09-23T09:39:00.001-04:00

While writing out this list, I had made myself an unofficial rule that I would not consider remakes or movies in the same series as seperate entries. The thing from another world ended up being an exception for reasons listed below.

I also had a rule about science fiction films, but I realized I wasn't listing horror movies, but movies that should be watched during Halloween times.

The thing from another world (1951)

A crew at an Artic Research base discover a flying saucer. At the crash site they find the body of an alien frozen in ice. They take it back to their base where the ice begins to melt, and the creature is released upon them.

The special effects and stunts, the few that are found here, are spectacular! One of the key reasons is the long takes during these moments. The added direction of the producer Howard Hawks gives realism as the dialogue overlaps which is considered an editor's nightmare still today. The film is rather short which makes viewing easy and entertaining.

The thing (1982)

In this take, directed by John Carpenter, the story follows the short story much closer then the previously mentionned film. This take is over the top in gore and scares. It sets itself apart from the previous incarnation by adding a twist: The creature takes over the shape of anybody, and anything.

This time, the setting is change to Antartica. The constant search for who, or what, has become 'the thing' and this time many things can be 'the thing' keeps the picture going. Kurt Russell's character isn't central at the begning of the movie but bit by bit the character takes space as he becomes essential when the situation calls for immediate action.

There is scene in particular that I'll always remember. When one of the characters is identified as the thing, his head detaches from his body (wich is tied to a chair). It then grows legs and begins to crawl around. Great stuff!

41 Days left. Movies to watch before Halloween: Last man on Earth

2010-09-21T21:55:00.001-04:00

Last man on Earth (1964)

Last man on Earth is the first of four attempts at adapting Richard Matheson's short story I am Legend. It isn't the most popular of the four, the latest starring Will Smith and the second starring Charlton Heston, but is the best in my opinion. Being a low budget Italian production, it bypasses special effects much present in the before mentioned adaptations and focuses on the loneliness of the main character.

This time, the lead is played by Vincent Price which tones down on the campiness and delivers a hero tormented by the outbreak. The whole movie takes place odd some years after the initial crisis and finds our hero constantly assaulted by old acquaintances. The vampires in this film are much closer to the zombies in Night of the living dead to the point one could be lead to believe it had an influence on the soon to be cult director.

After all these years, the material feels fresh and the horror still frightening. I still have scenes playing through my head way after my last viewing.

Movie Highlights:
- Vincent Price
- Beginning of the zombie genre
- Great climax
- Perfect ending
- Script partly written by Richard Matheson

42 days. Movies to watch before Halloween: Carnival of Souls

2010-09-20T22:47:00.003-04:00

Halloween is my favorite time of the year. I wanted to get a head start this year, so I'm going to start a countdown listing some of my favorite (and not so favorite) films to watch during Halloween time! Let's slash the introduction and dig right in:

Carnival of Souls (1962)

This is Herk Harvey only feature film. It tells the story of a young woman who survives a drag race which ends with her car going off the bridge and into the river below. Being the only survivor, she takes a position as an organist to a Church in Salt Lake City following some advice to get away. The film focuses on the heroine being followed by a ghostly figure (played here by director Herk Harvey).

One of the strong points, one which I hadn't noticed until I read a commentary by the writer on the criterion edition's booklet, is the lack of sympathy every other character has towards the heroine. Although she has been through a traumatizing experience, the other characters are indifferent. Although the writer comments this adds a level of connection the audience has for the character, I feel this aspect gives an added layer of reality to the film.

Harvey took inspiration from Bergman in the way he directs and the overall look of the film. There is, however, a campy feel as some of the acting made me wonder weather it was poor intentionally or not. The framing of the film is quite tight. Some of the most memorable scenes are quiet and subtle: Such as the encounter with the ghostly figure while driving.

Movie highlights:

- Atmospheric organ music
- Waltzing corpse
- Great framing
- Some incredibly awkward flirting (to the point it feels like sexual harassment)
- Herk Harvey's stalking corpse

Another one

2010-06-07T19:33:00.001-04:00

Here is another I've had lying around for a bit. I've decided to halt Flinkin's life and persue Rick's since I feel closer to that comic. I'm also close to finishing writing the first Franglais show episode. I know Nelson's been waiting patiently for the finished script for a while now.

The third

2010-06-06T15:21:00.002-04:00

It's been a while. this comic was drawn up a while back actually. I have neglected to post it because I had assumed I had already done so.

I hit a creative wall due to my new job taking up a lot of space. I want it to come back as I like the ideas explored in my comics.

Flinkin's life second

2010-03-19T10:35:00.002-04:00

I wanted to explore more universal themes with Flinkin's Life. Basically, the main character is Al Flinkin who's recently divorced and was a stay-at-home father. I incerted a kid in the Rick comic a few months ago, I think a little over a year actually, but it seemed like it belonged in another universe. So Al's comic here gives me better dimenson to work with.

The start of something new

2010-03-17T09:33:00.002-04:00

So here it is; going back to drawing basics. The whole thing is 'in development' so you get what you paid for and seeing as I'm giving it out for free...well...

I hope it takes on a form of its own eventually and keeps me busy.

I always thought this was true

2010-03-15T08:19:00.002-04:00

I always thought my wife didn't want to make me meet her friends by fear I'd embarrass her. I guess she does have a point going for her because I tend to be blunt when I get nervous. That or the complete opposite, I can be really shy and end up spewing out gibberish. The above example did not happen...so far.

My house wants a house...badly

2010-03-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

So this is the first time I used my Wacom tablet to drawn some background and characters. As you can tell, this is the reason I needed to get back to basics (something I skipped out on in the first place).

This thought came up when I overheard an old boss mentioning her 'open concept design living room/dining room'. This sounded more pleasant then it must be. I knew which sector of the city she lived in, so I knew straight away she was overselling her crap. Shinny crap is still crap, sorry old boss.

I'm almost done with the supply of Rick comics. So I'll begin posting Flinkin's life on here for the moment being. Since I'm beginning my regular shifts it's sort of a question of proper adaptation. All the new material is taking up a lot of my motivation and mental space. I guess I don't have that much real estate in there otherwise I'd continue without a scratch. The problem is motivation at this point. I'm focused on all my new tasks, not forgetting or screwing up at work. This removes a lot of humor from my life and replaces it with stress. It shouldn't last long however, just a question of adjustment.

I like working on Flinkin's Life because I like to central character and the very simplistic design. I've set up rules for myself to keep my drawings fast and out of the door. This is prime kick in the motivating nuts. That comic is drawn backwards where I color things out and then draw the outline around that.

It's time to roll some stuff out

2010-03-10T08:13:00.003-05:00

Well, I started my new job and it means awkward working hours as I fall at the bottom of the list for schedules. However, this also means I get more time alone with my daughter and some time to draw new comics. I was planning on creating a bigger buffer and launching a new comic strip but I might as well give out whatever I'm holding hostage by fear of never getting anything done.

So above is my frustration with the horrible way PC gamers are being fucked. What with steam's overpriced non-physical copies of games and GFWL's horrendous XBOX/PC running at the same time issues, it's hard to imagine PC gaming ever gaining some momentum back. What happened to just installing a fucking game and that was it? Now, you've got to be connected to the Internet to play offline. What a load of shit that is.

On another note, I was planning on continuing the strip Rick, which is the title of the strip I've been posting, but put it on hold for a bit. I'm going back to drawing basics with a strip called Flickin's Life. It's hand drawn and, I must say, horribly drawn but I'm learning back basics and making sure I stick with practicing this time. It's a strip about a recently divorced father of two who use to be a stay at home parent who must now find a job and reconnect with the world. I like the writing better in that strip, but the drawings require work.

A month later

2010-02-13T13:34:00.002-05:00

Here we are! Almost a full month since last post.

So here we go with good news. I've finished writing half a dozen comics and the bug's got me again. I started to draw new ones and just purchased a tabletPC to, what I hope, facilitate the drawings.

I've completed shooting the pilot episode for my new series: Franglais Show. The whole production is nearly wrapped up. I'm about a fourth of the way through editing right now. I'm hoping it'll turn out better then I thought. When we finished shooting, my thoughts were very dark...almost...suicide-like that's how bad I thought the production was but the post-production is bringing me joy! So we'll see.

At work, I'm changing positions. I'm climbing the later so I've got a lot more to do. This is another reason I've placed a few things on hold.

I want a few comics done right now but my daughter is sleeping which is making it difficult to try out the new tablet!

I need therapy

2010-01-17T09:39:00.002-05:00

I've been working on more Reel 3 presents related material but none of it is complete. Basically, I've been working on producing a show with a colleague. The pilot is almost complete but I am reluctant to actually publish it through this web-site. The main reason deals with language. My colleague will be speaking french the entire time and I'm afraid to can be a turn off for most readers here.

Something else, besides computers, that have put a dent in on the web-comic production has everything to do with work. The annual reviews are coming in which is taking up a lot of my mental strength. I'm not as confident as I expected to be towards this. At the same time, new positions are opening up and I'm being placed on projects that drain me mentally. I tend to jump in head first on these things and realize I'm deep in shit before finally surfacing. The whole process takes some time to adjust too.

If there is one good news to draw from all this is that the comic tends to be a form of therapy for me. So producing them releases some of my inner demons and helps me cope. I'm hoping to start production again. If things work out well and I'm able to get a new laptop (this time a Mac) then production will be even faster both in terms of video production and the comic. Since my wife's priority is to move out however I may have to wait for that computer. I think it'll be hard to buy it behind her back considering I work on the kitchen table in plain sight.

"What's that?"
"Borrowed it."
"For how long?"
"Forever."
"From who?"
/runs away

It's really not important

2009-12-30T10:51:00.003-05:00

When I found out they announced thief 4, or should I say thi4f, I was quite pleased. I'm very excited about the next installment but I'll be honest in saying that besides me nobody gives a shit around here. It makes it difficult to discuss the development of the game. So I sought refuge in my favorite Thief web-site TTLG.

On the forums you can find many discussions of people not content with the title, the logo, the font, the lighting, the no-subtitle and whatever else you can think of. My own inner conversation went along the lines of what you see up there. However the forums are filled with unhappy fans and the conversations drag on. It's not that bad though because most members are polite and interesting to read.

On another note, I'm noticing a very minimalist approach to the comic lately. It's not intentional but I'm not liking it. It has has a lot to do with my home set up. The only computer with photoshop is in the back on a very uncomfortable desk and chair. It makes it hard to type and draw. Also, the photoshop version I have is 7.0 which has many bugs on vista (yes I have vista...fuck) so I can draw for half an hour and all the sudden the thing will crash. Since my daughter ripped out my internet usb key and broke it I have to use this extra long wire that's so old it won't work if it's bent at a specific angle. I'm hoping to rectify all of this but it's difficult given the time constraints on me. Maybe I should just concentrate on making short films. We'll see...

Wait for the explanation

2009-12-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not making fun of fat people here, I'm only laughing at one particular person who's weight has almost doubled in the last year. Why is this funny? Well she use to make fun of everyone else's looks in high school so it does even things out a bit. Her weight gain looks like Marge Simpson at the candy convention when her trench coat was full. I'm dead serious!

To me, it's funny because my own wife gained a bit of weight after giving birth but I find this more attractive. Her body took it very well, she might have gained 1/4th of what she use to weight. My friend from high school however has not gained it in that fashion. Maybe I'm being mean, but it's sort of a payback for everyone who was a victim of her comments I guess.

I wonder sometimes

2009-12-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

I don't have a hit counter on this web-site. The ranking with top web-comics seems to have one but I don't know if it has anything to do with my profile or this web-site in particular.

On the other hand, I do have a friend who looks at his web-site none stop and is happy everytime the counter goes up. I always wondered if he factored in his own visits from computers at home and work. He's the type of person that wouldn't be phased by the possibility that nobody actually looks at his web-site but himself, he would come up with some odd logic that would turn him into a hero.

Sensitivity training

2009-12-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

A coworker lost his mother a few months back, when he made the announcement at a meeting it was met with an automatic response from the meeting holder. She gave her condolence with the greatest of all sympathetic tone of voice. I don't even think the person had time to finish saying his mother had died when the sympathy came out. It was so well timed and said that it almost felt as if she cared.

That isn't to say she didn't but the man is in his 60s for goodness sake. Part of me envy the meeting holder for having such good timing and rehearsed condolence speeches. My own repertoire is short and has very little good in it. My reaction would be to ask in the most sympathetic voice how old the person was at the unfortunate moment. This opens myself up to the most awkward conversation in history. My second reaction would be to say something along the lines of '90 years old? Wow, she's lived a full life hasn't she?' to which I might get a beating of some sort.

Condolences open up no conversation, it simply follows by a thank you and the whole thing is done. I just can't offer them without knowing the diseased. I feel condolences require you to know the person first before you can offer them. I don't feel apologizing makes any sense since I had nothing to do with it.

The whole thing is confusing.

What I thought happened was...

2009-12-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

With my first short out on Youtube, which I will not link to here for lazy reasons, I ran into copyright issues I though would be resolved quickly. This didn't turn out so because I have no other resort then to change the music in the background, but this is made more difficult by the fact that the first edit of the short is now gone. It disappeared when I had to reformat my computer.

The second short didn't have this issue which I am quite happy about. I began writing the third shortly after completion of the first but that whole thing was delayed so much I lost interest. I still have the shot-for-shot play written down. Instead, I began shooting a side project. This also fell through. It turns out having a kid is more and more demanding. I would normally shoot on my days off when she's sleeping but her day time naps are almost over. Now that she's walking, running and climbing it's making the whole thing more difficult.

So I started drawing some comics. This is now difficult because photoshop is only on the computer in the back room which is housing my younger cat who is in transit right now. That computer's wireless card was ripped out of the computer by my daughter a few weeks back. So no internet, this laptop has internet but no photoshop. The CDs are back at my parent's house.

In conclusion, my laziness is the only thing keeping me from accomplishing anything.

I ran out of things to write

2009-12-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've been having a hard time with my creative writing for over a year now. It doesn't help that I don't write on a regular basis and don't read much. I pick up a book here and there but they aren't fiction novels so they don't teach me much about writing.

As you can tell this specific comic was also re-written with MS paint because of my computer problems. The first draft had a huge mistake in it which required a re-write.

I find myself writing this late in the night and I need to head to bed..

A return on your investment

2009-12-16T07:00:00.001-05:00

If you join a corporation get ready to fight your inner demons. A lot of what you'll learn won't make sense at first and seem irrational but sooner or later you'll understand. I wonder if you lose your soul or you simply applied their logic. I was watching a show about psychopaths who create their own logic for their malevolent actions. Is this similar? I'm not sure if I want to find out.

I had a point with the last paragraph which I can tell you is lost because I was cut mid-thought by launch. I read over it before writing this and it the whole thing sounds pretty insane. I know I had a line I wanted to add at the end that would turn the whole paragraph into a joke but I forgot it.

Here's a run down:
Inglourious Basterds has two great chapters and the rest kind of dwindles.
Legend of Zelda: Spirit tracks has one fun (spoiler) Goron (spoiler) chapter and the rest is tedious.

It's all coming back to me now

2009-12-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

I must say I'm not looking forward to my daughter going to school. The reason is as follows, I don't really enjoy social conformity. I'm sure few people do. I understand what a professional attitude is about but I never felt such a thing is understood by most people and I don't feel it ought to apply to students below legal age. School is a completely different experience.

I can tell I might get into fights with my daughter's teachers and the school staff. I don't like their control methods and I don't feel they are in their right to manipulate such young minds. The first thing to admit is that I wasn't a trouble maker in school so my daughter wouldn't follow into my footsteps. If my wife was around I'd be pointing at her right now.

I did do a lot of bad things, but most I was never caught for. I do support certain activities that are not considered appropriate. A good example is swearing, I despise censorship. I'm not into the whole in-your-face attitude because I also understand restraint, arrogance and bluntness. My understanding is that bluntness is it's true form is a simple form of honesty mixed in with a lack of general care for proper education of others.

There is more to say on the subject, but this shouldn't turn into a rant.

A taste of our own medicine

2009-12-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

This actually happened. A few subsidized phones were distributed with subsidized plans. A lot of employees were confused as to what was free and wasn't in the plan. They ended up getting a lot of applications and downloads that weren't free and just like our customers were not aware of the charges. I'm not saying any of this is funny, but I did find it amusing at the time.

I cut up one of my fingers yesterday after I ended up taking a slip on some ice in my parking which makes typing this end a chore. So I'll keep it short.

The divorce game

2009-12-09T07:00:00.001-05:00

Ever had the feeling somebody you know is waiting on your relationship to crash and burn? I've had that feeling before and let me tell you how much fun I had with it! I managed to annoy the living crap out of this person for four years. He eventually seemed to give up when I impregnated my wife. That crushed his hopes a bit.

Anyways, I think my daughter managed to break one of my toes this morning. She had this heavy toy cellphone in her hand while I was holding her. She eventually dropped it and it got on the thin part of my big toe. After the muffled thud of the toy's fall, I went on a tirade of bad words which I hope will not be my daughter's first.

Right now, I'm sitting across the table from my wife who is mad at me for screaming at the top of my lungs, my daughter is to my right where she is wisely storing her breakfast down her shirt for later consumption and my toe is reminding me of it's state by sending sharp pain up my foot every once in a while. My wife hasn't asked if I was alright or anything which makes this whole meal more awkward by the fact that nobody is talking.

Uh-oh, I stared at her for too long. She's asking me 'what?' but her tone of voice doesn't suggest anger. This meal is looking up already.

The wheel rolls again

2009-12-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

So here it is; the begining of the new series. I've completed a few so I do have a buffer. I was going to have one heck of buffer too if it wasn't for a virus. I nearly lost these few that I had already drawn but I was able to save them for the time being. It turns out formatting this old laptop was something I should have done a while back. The laptop itself is eight years old I think and operates on XP. I highly doubt Windows 7 or vista would function on this one.

Either way, I'm also filming a different short then previously envisionned. It won't be part of the Easily Influenced Guy series but something completely on the side for fun. I hope I'll have the guts to release it beyond my circle of friends but we'll see.

Well it's been over a month and here is the sum up

2009-12-03T09:44:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been over a month since the last update.

Here is the run-down of what's been going on.

I've had a shift change for a good month now where instead of working my regular hours of around 9am to 5pm I've been working more around 12pm to 9pm which made producing anything difficult. I've also had my daughter get a cold which was a worry because of this whole H1N1 scare.

I've also had to get ready for Q4 at work. This is a very busy season for us and we've launched a whole lot of new things. I'm quite excited to be honest as we have launched some of the best initiatives in a while. My responsibilities have also expanded which, to me, is absolutely awesome. Knowledge is important and these new tasks help expand that knowledge every day.

I've completed pre-production of my third short film a few weeks back but haven't gotten into any filming. When I did get some time off, as mentioned above, my daughter became ill.

The comic bug is hitting me once again so I'm looking into producing more comics very soon. I have a bunch of ideas and I can't wait to get started again. I actually enjoy doing the comics more then I thought. I'm looking forward to a fresh new wave of them.

The writing bug also got to me so I started a few short stories. I have to say that I honestly lost my talent in the fiction department. I use to write actively and read a lot of fiction but it's been replaced with efficient essay writing for the last 2 years. I'm quite disappointed in my work.

I see that my rank on the top web comic list hasn't gotten down. I'd like to thank you all for tuning in to check for updates and apologize for the lack thereof. I have to say that I am embarrassed by the lack of updates and am beginning to feel as if I'm treating you like as well as the Irate Gamer is treating his fans when it comes to deadlines.

Obviously, if I did all this for a living I'd be serving more but that isn't the case. I want to give more though and am optimistic about the future since any readers deserve more!

The second EIG short is here

2009-10-28T09:53:00.002-04:00

I'm still working on the audio issues for the first. It seems I'll have to re-edit it with another track because of copyright issues with WMG.

In the mean time, I've completed the second short. It's the easily influenced guy watches the living dead. It's a lot tighter in terms of editing and shooting. It's also shorter. I like it better over the first. I see the improvements but I can see where it could use some polish.

I'm looking forward to begin shooting my third short. This one should be longer as it is inspired by spaghetti westerns. I'm still working to see if I can do camera tricks even though I operate the camera and act in front of it.

Change of pace

2009-10-26T07:08:00.005-04:00

Well things have been altered just a bit. I haven't made new comics as you can see. I produced two shorts which I will post.

I can see the lack of comic updates haven't affected things that much since I haven't seen any hits on the web-site before I stopped writings them. That's alright, I'm going to pick making comics up soon it's just a question of timing.

In the mean time, here is the first short I made. There are a few things I wouldn't mind altering now that I look back at the short but it's the first I've done in six years. I'm glad I can learn from my mistakes. I'll post the second short, ummm, shortly.

Thw easily influenced guy watches AVGN

What a terrible lead in

2009-10-19T07:00:00.000-04:00

I have a knack for talking before thinking. I often times, I guess, imagine a question before it's formulated. I then begin asking it with a small lead in; a build up of questions. These questions have no actual link with what I'm about to ask, they merely serve as time filler until the moment I can finally articulate my question. The problem is often times the lead in destroys any probability of properly formulating my question because it's a combination of dumb questions.

I finally finished post-production of the first third of the short film. These aren't equal parts. The second part is longer and more complicated to film and the last should be incredibly short. I will then wrap up post with the soundtrack. It's been so far a joy! I haven't work on a film in six years! This is bound to be my shortest of course as it's going it will probably clock at around three to four minutes at best. I've only edited up to slightly over a minute now.

Some of the shots will need a re shoot seeing as I was so hasty to wrap up filming before my daughter woke up I forgot to remove the tripod in the back of a specific shot. Two additional inserts require additional trim but nothing that can't be solved quickly. I hope it'll be worth it. I'm guessing editing the soundtrack will be the hardest given the crappy software I'm using. Time will tell! The software lets me edit non-linear but only with one layer of titles, one layer of video and one layer of audio. If I haven't mentioned it before, it's a lot like iMovie but without all the extras.

This is what I do on my days off

2009-10-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

Today marks the beginning of production on my first short. Although it's been plagued with post-production issues, such as the fact that I don't have a Mac to do it on, I've decided to use the means available to me. Mainly, my means are editing on this 8 year old laptop with the software that came with the camera. It works but not very fast.

Another issue is the fact that although I can add transitions during production which means while I am filming I can't do it in post. What the fuck? I did plan all my shots in advance, but I am also directing and acting. I can't place a transitions on shots while I film because I have to trim the beginnings and ends of many takes later on. I can also segment scenes on my camera, but I can't do it on the post-production software. Why the fuck not? Who designed this piece of shit?

I can't wait to regain Final Cut Pro or at least it's lesser form iMovie.

Oh so that's why!

2009-10-14T07:00:00.001-04:00

I'd like to point out I'm actually a cat person. I've lived with a total of six cats in my life (three are still alive) and I wouldn't go back. My parents now have a dog which I can't relate too. To me, he just seems over excited and dumb. Whenever I visit, my mother points out the dog seems to love me and is to a certain extent loyal to me. This is very odd as I don't do much with him. I do chase him around every once in a while and encourage him when he does good things, but I mostly push him away and force his nose down whenever he goes after my parent's cat. That cat has been with me since my childhood and no four legged dog is going to give him a hard time!

Part of the other projects mentioned in the last post are as follows.

I was planning on getting a new web host where I would upload my projects. Reel 3 presents would finally expand into what I've always wanted it to be: the name of my production company. This web-comic would now be listed under Nitpick (as in Reel 3 presents: Nitpick). This would, I believe, give the web comic it's third or fourth name. Reel 3 presents was not suppose to be it's original name but since nothing else produced was seeing the public eye it made no sense to have the prefix in there.

On this web-site I was planning on opening up the possibility of hosting independent short films from Canadians. I've been going back and forth with the idea and have settled on wanting to make it come true. I believe young Canadian filmmakers deserve a free way of getting their work published. I would propose to do the hosting of their shorts and would not charge for it or retain any exclusive rights of distribution. If at some point the filmmakers do secure an exclusive contract I would therefore remove the videos from my web-site.

All these ideas are short term goals. They would take years to properly develop. I'm looking forward to it.

Hard duty

2009-10-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

It may seem transparent to you guys, but to me, the last time I made a comic was over twelve days ago. It's been a while! I've been busy with chores around the house since my wife has gone back to work. I've also picked up new projects that may or may never see the light of day.

The first is a graphic novel entitled The Director. It's the story of a disillusioned director who slowly loses his mind after his film crew walks out on him. The graphics are rotoscoped pictures I'm taking. I've only gone through a few frames of the novel so far and it's not looking good. The idea and technique works but it's incredibly time consuming. I have to set up the shots, upload and finally edit them. I first rotoscope what's there and edit out the background, following that I draw in a new background and fix the lighting to my taste. I've written about a third of the story but haven't gotten anywhere near the amount of pictures needed.

The second is a short film entitled 'The easily influenced guy watches AVGN'. It's satire and involves, obviously, the Angry Video Game Nerd. No James Rolfe isn't on the project and isn't aware of it. Check out his films at Cinemassacre.com. It's worth a watch for sure. Don't worry, if I can get around to filming and editing it'll make sense. This one is close to two thirds written so far. Pre-production is almost over and production is to begin tomorrow. I'm doing test shots. The problem is that my editing Mac has crashed. The hard drive is completely gone so I'm working on finding an alternative.

I have plenty more things keeping me busy but I'll keep them for further posts.

I'm not sure I get it

2009-10-09T07:00:00.000-04:00

We constantly assume we understand how animals behave. I do this all the time. I see my cat purring and rubbing against my leg. I see this as a sign of affection. I give her a small petting and walk away, but then she runs after my leg and bites it! I guess I didn't give her the proper return.

The same goes for dogs. Man's best friend might actually be turning us into smelly beings by licking us in order to prevent other animals from eating what they already labelled as fatty disgusting meat. When a bear is ready to attack and that dog gets between the two, it could simply mean he's trying to prevent having an indigestion.

Maybe the dog defends the human because he keeps us around as that special 'emergency meal'. "Back off, I'm saving it for a rainy day!"

You know, reptiles really don't seem to give a damn. They also don't have many facial expressions. No poker face, no fake smile or anything, they also don't cuddle or care about you. They might be the good guys after all. Maybe you ought to trade in that dog for a nice python.

How in the world?

2009-10-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've been having my memory probed at lately. It's as if I'm constantly sending out inquiries to my brain to obtain information on my past. I think Waltz with Bashir has something to do with it, the message of the film isn't that memory is faulty or can be forged but that memory is important to the individual and understanding those memories is crucial.

The film explains how memories can be altered and mean something different then originally intended. I'd like to take a moment to also mentioned this isn't what stuck with me after the film, but it's simply something I began to explore on a personal level.

A few years ago, I remember listening to a song by Yes called Changes. The introduction immediately struck like a lightning bolt. Memories and feelings can rushing back. I searched out every member of my family to make them listen to the song in the hopes the same thing would happen to them. I was disappointed to hear that none of them knew the song. I could clearly remember hearing it as a child while driving in a car in Ottawa. This, as it turns out, could be a false memory. It's so vague and unclear. The memory is being mixed with my father introducing me to this song at home. That memory is also very foggy.

The song still strikes me as a distant flare but the more I listen to it, the more foreign it's becoming. My memories seem to be changing again.

It was just a thought experiment and it felt good digging at my brain to find things I thought I didn't bother to remember. The previous post about Garfield is also another result from the thought experiment. Although those memories are much more clear.

At this point, I must mention I'm taking some strong medication because I have a cold.

An ode to Jim Davis

2009-10-05T07:00:00.000-04:00

Growing up I read a lot of Garfield, I watched the TV shows and specials, played some of the video games and most definitely fell in love with the universe it created. Not far from our own, Garfield's universe is fascinating as a child. Here is a character that embraces what most kid would want out of life: The possibility to do whatever one wants, when one wants to do it. What made the strip funny to me as a child was how it went to that maxim and showed how unpleasant it would be for all who would abide by that code.

Garfield is a great character because we sympathize with him. He represents our inner urges. He also faces the consequences of letting those urges take over. He even goes as far as becoming a hyperbole but just as he is about to hit the mark, he pulls back and shows a heart. The character is a window into human nature and the acceptance we have of that nature. It plays on this paradox: We accept our lazy ways but we resent them. It's that driving force. Each day is a fight between letting everything go and making the best effort to push ourselves further.

Garfield was one of the few American strips I read growing up. My father has a collection of Franco-Belgium comics which are both fascinating and hilarious. As a child, I would pick up one before heading off to bed and read it cover-to-cover. As I got older, I would pick up two, then three and before I knew it I was reading half a collection! This is when I switched over to novels but before I made the leap Garfield was my own pursuit. Call it genetics, call it influence but my father painted the way for Garfield. The only other American comic I can think of that I pursued was Peanuts. In French it's simply called Snoopy which doesn't serve it justice. This made Snoopy the central character, the collection of strips found within those books were focused on that character. So to me, Peanuts was about Snoopy. How ashamed I was when I learnt the central focus of the series was Charlie Brown? I remember watching those cartoons on TV and wondering why Snoopy was in the background, not taking up the spotlight.

So back on track, thanks Jim Davis, for allowing a character that shaped my sense of humor. These strips aren't the result of that humor of course (in case you thought you did something wrong) but my day to day life is a lot more enjoyable because it is quite simply, life your strips, hilarious!

I'm not big on catch phrases

2009-10-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

I really don't care for catch phrases. They just seem like simple arguments for the simple minded. Things like 'you got to roll with the punches' don't do me any good. I don't mind when it's used thinking back on what happened, but live? Who uses it live?

Person A: I'm going bankrupt!

Person B: You just have to roll with the punches!

6 months later: Person A has committed suicide.

Happy now? How useful and well thought out that piece of advice was!

Anyways, my wife is back at work at this point. This isn't a very easy transition for her. After maternity leave, and an early leave from work during her pregnancy, it's difficult to go back into a place that isn't under your complete rule.

It's always the other girl

2009-09-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

I remember a long time ago discussing women with a friend. We had come to the conclusion that often times, the girl we were interested in wasn't interested in us but her unattractive mood swinging friend was. This was the same all the time. It definitely wasn't pleasant. I also remember bringing our case to some friends and getting very little support on it.

It's as if nobody gets the joke or nobody wants to get the joke. The same thing happened at work the other day. Some coworkers were making fun of this catfish looking person. I mentioned she looked like a breast cancer fighter because of the bandanna she wore. I wasn't making fun of breast cancer fighters or anything but the comment didn't fly and I'm sure I didn't score points with the female crowd. The other way around though, had I made fun of some testicular cancer looking guy, it probably might have gone over better. I guess men are easier targets then women. Tell that to the guys who are fighting with that cancer! You insensitive bastards, how dare you make fun of those poor souls!

Looking glass

2009-09-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

I'm a middle child so I've been striving for attention my whole life through unconventional means. As a kid, I would give my parents a look like I did something wrong and dwell in the fun of having them figure out what I did even if I hadn't done anything wrong. Now that I've moved out, my wife is the new receiver of my annoying little shenanigans.

I think that's pretty much it for this update. My daughter is teething and man is she a pain in the rear. She's perfect nice times out of ten. It just so happens she's hitting her eleventh month and this entire month has been the unperfect one!

The secret stash

2009-09-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

As I'm posting this, my wife is watching Glee in the background. I can't help but comment on how much I fucking hate that show. It's basically the combination of everything that can make a show successful and that's exactly why I hate it. It's not art, it's manipulation. For the record, I think it lacks black people, since black people are popular nowadays. I'm sure some might find that last sentence offensive, I would ask you to go back and re-read it if you do and ask yourself some questions. There really isn't anything offensive about it.

Moving on, away from the dangerous territory of ethnicity, I'm (very) slowly learning programming and I find it fascinating. I'm covering ASP right now. As an adult, I realize how much of a problem I must have been as a child. Whenever I learnt a new subject I thought I knew a bit of information about I would skip all basic classes. This is what's happening and I'm noticing how annoying it is. I'm learning ASP without having learnt the basics of Java scripting. I grew up with it, but never learnt it officially and believe me you can't get me to make a simple application that calculates Pi. So there you go...

I feel like Home Simpson who isn't getting that folding joke in the Mad Magazine when I read TheDailyWTF yet I still laugh and say things out loud like "Oh my GOD!" and try to explain it to anybody who asks why I explained that. This tests whether or not I truly understood the entry. It usually results in me bastardizing the entry and having the person who asked, and doesn't care for programming, give that 'oooooooo.....k moving on!' look.

We've had this conversation before

2009-09-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

My wife and I have changed the furniture that held our precious DVDs. They will now hide inside drawers where their multicolored boxes won't be cluttering our view. When they use to sit on our library shelves, our system was simple: My wife's and I DVDs were separated, she had her shelves and I had mine. The same system is applied here but with a twist!

We're planning on separating regular films from TV shows. My wife didn't get the point though because she has compilation DVDs of similar themed episodes in a TV show and placed them amongst the film drawers. This was argued over. She believed I only meant TV show style boxes were to be separated. Other problems surfaced, things like The Simpsons movie was ambiguous.

We have gladly solved this issue. In other words, I won! I get to veto however I want and chose where things go. A glorious victory for sure but bittersweet considering my fear we will run out of drawers soon!

I'm getting old

2009-09-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've fallen out of the gaming community years ago. I still kept tabs on it, but the older I get the less tabs I keep. I started to lose interest around the same time women occupied my mind. When I met my wife, my interest took a plunge. It took a few months for the adjustments to take effect. She started to work at times I didn't have anything planned. I was eventually pulled back in. A small window of pure joy was what I experienced! When she got pregnant and went on maternity leave, the idea that I had free time was completely lost. It's been lost for almost a year and a half. During this time, I think I can count the games I played: Team Fortress 2, Half-Life: Ep 1 & 2, Bioshock, both Penny-Arcade adventures, Infamous, Motorstorm 2, Littlebigplanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 4, Left 4 dead and Fallout 3. I think that sums it up, I might have missed 1 or 2 titles (but that's very unlikely).

I was part of the first people to play Counter-Strike. What I mean by part of the first is most likely part of the first thousands of people to do so. I was hooked in it's early Beta stages. I can't remember which one. I think I've been holding on to that time period ever since. Thinking I was on the edge of what was popular. I predicted accurately and lead treads for maybe 2-3 years. Then I stopped. Where everybody else evolved into other games and platform gaming, I was still holding on to PC games and modding. Where everyone had learnt to code and build games, I had only learnt to play and figure out what can be a good seller. So in a way, I can only blame myself for not feeling close to the current gaming community. I had a Wii, which I didn't like very much, I now have a PS3 (traded in the Wii). I'm far from being part of the popular crowd.

The biggest shock for me was when Half-Life 2 was released. All my friends had lost interest, I tore through the protective plastic of the box and installed all those damn CDs (I didn't get the DVD version of the game, another sign I hadn't moved on) and ran it. The shock to me is that I didn't actually like the game. That's not to say I hated it, but I've always felt it isn't on the same page as the first. The first had this whole cartoonish/caricature thing going on, the second was grounded and morbid. The older I get, the better I feel about it. I still stand by my beliefs that it changes the original Half-Life charms, but I forgive it.

Another clear example of my gaming problem is Black & White. I stood by this game like nobody else. I played, replayed and hacked, modified and cheated in the game to the point of making it an entirely different experience. It only had five worlds and I've never seen the fifth world! Even with all the cheating and hacking, I could never get passed world four! That fucking flaming, meteor shower, everything burning world was not a pleasure to be in! The micromanagement was atrocious! Fuck! THIS GAME SUCKS...but I love it. I even bought Creature Isle. I loved this game, I wanted to love it and I convinced myself it was good. the truth is it was horrible. A great experiment is the best title I can award it. Damn you Lionhead Studios, I've been embarrassing myself for years standing by your product and you haven't done anything to make it any better.

Don't tell my wife, but when she gets back to work. I'm going on a gaming craze!

I've always wanted to do this

2009-09-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

I always wanted to film a documentary on Montreal calling centers. I figure that although a lot of people are aware of how things are they don't have the full picture. My company alone, forgetting the calling sector aspect of it, would probably shock people who aren't use to bureaucratic procedures. I find bureaucracy is to ensure that a Swiss cheese work force can still function albeit being dumb, slow and inefficient. I say Swiss cheese work force because I find the work force itself is composed of intelligent beings (the cheese) and unqualified entities (the holes). Thing always work out where the unqualified set the pace.

In the meantime, my daughter is starting to walk and stand up on her own. This means she's obsessively climbing everything and getting frustrated at everything that isn't climbing. She's an awesome kid but it's becoming hard to be around her. It's either she complains because she's not standing or climbing, or she's complaining while doing it because it's not going the way she planned. She's also got an obsession with remotes and wires which i s difficult to control.

I watched Waltz with Bashir two days ago. It shocked me in a way Grave of the Fireflies should have shocked me. Grave of the Fireflies was a superb film, but didn't get me emotionally as much as Waltz with Bashir. The final interview describing what the reporter saw as he went in the camp broke me down. It also happens to be a great meditation on memory and what it means to know and experience things. I recommend it.

The things I do for her

2009-09-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

My wife is into Brothers and Sisters, which I tried to watch but couldn't get into. It just seemed like every male character I saw seemed gay to me (not that there is anything wrong with that). The whole show is built around characters facing annoying problems and handle them in the most annoying way. They then proceed to monologue over what they've learnt or explain the reasons for their poor decisions. The whole thing is just not fascinating. I would get annoyed reading the script.

I've been busy with my family for the passed few weeks and haven't produced that many comics. I'm sure glad I had built a buffer, now I'm trying to rebuild it. I've been able to catch up on watching movies. I watched both parts of Che, I got to watch Wolfman (the original), The Third Man, Watchmen and another I can't remember. I've got a few more lined up. Waltz with Bashir is next along with Knowing.

Is this secure?

2009-09-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

I remember reading about programmers publishing short amounts of their company's code in the hopes to raise awareness of bad programming. In return, corporate security gets on their tale for publishing it and speaking against the company. Of course the partial code that was published had no significance to other programmers or companies but try explaining that to people who don't understand coding.

At my old work, my boss got a bit impatient with the IT guys because they wouldn't stop trying to convince him we should protect the systems as much as possible in case of corporate espionage. My boss told them off insisting all the information could be gathered regardless of the system. The only crucial information was the client database, which was already protected by the worst program I've ever seen. The database itself didn't hold much information on our customers. Name, address and contact information, that's it. It was the minimum required to open an account and all of it was obtainable through 411. My boss won the battle, no extra protection was added. Our systems were never compromised, they only crashed several times because the systems themselves were horribly coded.

My new work is the complete opposite. They are censoring web-sites and blocking applications. The servers themselves are like Swiss cheese because of this. In some instances you can do whatever you want but when it's time to obtain information through official channels you don't have the programs that are necessary (such as Flash).

I'm sure this is a line of code in our system:

100 input "Enter customer id";n

110 if n < = 0 then 200

120 Print "Customer balance"n-3

130 goto 210

200 implode

210 print "if you survived"

220 goto 100

Excuse the basic BASIC language, I'm far from being qualified, but just you wait I might actually be launching an inquiry from my company. Some security dick shit will go "wait, is this really part of our code?" and useless money will be spent looking into the issue.

It's like looking into a mirror

2009-09-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

When I notice things going around the office that aren't correct, I continuously assume this is how the minority of employees want things done. I always assume this way because I have a hope in humanity and in people. This hope, on the other hand, is fading slowly. I'm seeing less and less correlation between product quality and revenues. When it comes down to choosing one, you know already which one wins.

I'm slowly learning BASICS. I'm learning on a Vic-20 which is actually quite a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to VB. I've also considered going back to school for a semester to learn C++ and SQL. I just need to get a steady schedule and I'm in the clear. Their is a subsidized program that browses through the whole thing in 15 weeks. I hope I'll be able to take those classes seeing as how many jobs open up afterwords.

I only need two things to work

2009-09-09T07:00:00.000-04:00

My demands are simple. To work properly I need access to the bathroom and given the right to drink and brew coffee. If one of those two criteria isn't met I don't want to work for you. When I say brew coffee, it can be in any forms; from the french press to a simple drip. I love coffee, I love drinking it, I love brewing it, I like grinding it and I love learning about it. I've got an espresso machine at home which is always a pleasure to use. I clean it before and after every use. I don't think I've ever taken care of anything that well.

Back to work though, the reason why I want access to a bathroom has everything to do with the fact that I hate worrying about having to go. I couldn't become a trucker because of this. And to those reading this, it isn't pee I'm worry about! It's the other unpleasant need. I don't know why people always think I worry about pee. I think holding the other one in is much harder and a universal worry. I think I'm wrong. Maybe Larry David and I are the only ones who truly worry about those things.

In elementary school, we weren't allowed to go to the bathroom while in class. We couldn't go to the bathroom during recess either because they would lock the doors so we couldn't go in the school once we were out! In high school, you were lucky if you could find a bathroom with both toilet paper and a lock! Most didn't have tissue, we usually had two on rotation that did. These toilets were, obviously, far apart on opposite ends of the school. The ones with the locks were a little easier to find but what's the point without bathroom tissue? If you were lucky enough to have both you might have been lucky to have privacy. Students use to yell, throw things and generally do bad things in there.

So I do have some grounds for my public bathroom phobia. I've overcame it with my current job, but only because the facilities have both bathroom tissue and a lock. It also helps they're clean. In high school the bathrooms were dark and dirty.

I'm shivering just remembering those days.

Diffusion of responsibility

2009-09-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

Diffusion of responsibility in a big company is very important. It helps protect the company by not giving too much power to one entity and ensures that many gray areas are created for customers to be frustrated. That is the goal of the big corporation, to be so confused by it's own division of power that simple tasks can't be carried out by a single individual thus ensuring no downsizing for a while and a loss of revenue.

It also creates, in a very paradoxical move, mob rule mentality. If several people believe things should be done a certain way, the majority will win and responsibility passed down. This is, of course, to ensure that intellectualism and ethical considerations are crushed! Who needs those? I'll tell you who: The company that wants to make money! Mob rule ensures those pesky educated intellectuals are outnumbered and cannot be put to use unless the shit hits the fan. It's a very important concept to apply, and it must apply well.

Group Think also becomes a very important part of managing a big corporation. Without Group Think, how would the customers be robbed of resources and money? NASA doesn't have true customers so why did they apply it, I'll never know. It's also very important to have uneducated people climb the ropes, this helps prevent the possibility that the company will become self aware and realize their flaws.

I'll look for studies that demonstrate the positives of incompetence. I think I'll find many examples but not official studies. The reason why I won't find those studies is simple; they were carried out by educated intellectuals.

Depends on how you see it

2009-09-04T07:00:00.000-04:00

The last frame of this comic really depends how you see moral agents. If you are of the Emmanuel Kant camp you'll see it as an insult to humanity. If you are in the Jeremy Bentham camp you'll see it as an insult to the monkey. Personally I see it as an insult towards one moral agent to another because it implies Rick's boss is biting him when he doesn't work fast enough. I think this means I'm leaning more towards Bentham, but I'll let you debate that one out.

After a horrible heat wave in Montreal I'm ready to get back to my air conditionned desk at work. I've had two days off in a row in some of the most humid and hot days of summer this year. When I woke up this morning, I rushed to open the patio door to let some fresh air in. The good news is the air was cool. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week. As long as my place doesn't turn into an oven again I'll be happy.

So, all cooked from my days off, I return to work!

I don't know why they're doing it

2009-09-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

My parents have been looking for a 5 acre land away from civilization in time for my father to retire (my mom stayed homes with the kids). So far, they've always found little things they didn't like in the lands that were shown to them. Either the house sitting on the land was too much work or the land was.

One of them had flooding issues. I wouldn't touch it myself. When spring came around a third of the land would be submersed along with the main road. Another they saw had perfect land, but a house that needed at least $200,000 invested into it. My parents weren't looking for a huge project that involved both too much money (that amount to be invested was on top of the land cost) and too much work. Truth is I'm not sure if they are really committed.

At their age, it would be a lot of work. Obviously, I'd help around but I do have a daughter to take care of, not to mention my wife and work. I'm not in very good shape at this point in my life but this would be an excuse to get back in shape. I'm not sure how my parents would fair out against nature. My father hasn't done much exercise and he does consume alcohol every day. My poison is coffee, his is wine. We both enjoy the taste of our poisons but the effects that comes with might not be good for our health.

I'm curious to see what they'll settle with, if they do settle. This one is to be continued...

Try to find the joke

2009-08-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

The comic isn't funny for those who work at Workforce, but I find it very funny that we balance out failures with failures. Two wrongs don't make a right, it seems in this case it does! To balance out statistics at work sometimes we have to make other mistakes such as over staffing certain departments. This costs because we end up paying for overtime and our employees feel exhausted after being rushed through the first weeks of a month and then find themselves rolling their thumbs through the rest of the month not to mention the fact that next year when we look at this year's stats our predictions for staffing will still be wrong because of what was done.

The other day at work, before going up the escalator, I let a very prissy girl go up first. When I followed, I noticed she was wearing high heels. She would balance out her weight by placing the tip of her foot on the step and the heel portion would simply stay off the step. I figured this might be because she feared the heel could get stuck in the step, but by the time I could make up my mind we were at the top of the stairs and everything began to level out again. Where my eyes were at her heel level before they found themselves looking at the back of her head. The problem was because, as we were leveling, my eyes went from her heels, up her legs, up her back and then found themselves looking at the back of her head. A man happen to pass by at the same time and gave me a 'I know what you were looking at!' look. So now I look like a pervert.

Different hiring strategy

2009-08-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've noticed someone in particular at work whose strategy during job interviews is to outsmart those who interview him. Apparently, the idea is that if the interviewers overestimate him he will get the job. So to push the pompous arrogant look he got a full jar (is it a jar?) of perfume and sprayed himself with it. Although his only interviewer was a heterosexual male (not that it would make a difference if he was homosexual) the smell strategy was still applied.

Obviously that was a total failure. The idea was tried twice and to this day he's gotten nowhere. His ego still ballooned though. Even in failure he seems proud of his...ummm...display(?). I wish I had that mental disorder, it would make my life a lot more pleasant. When I don't get promoted I feel ashamed, humiliated and insulted. I do have a bit of arrogance, but not enough to say they've made a mistake, just enough to still believe I would have made a good job. Instead, I feel ashamed as if they told me directly I was an incompetent.

The problem for him though is that he doesn't learn from his mistakes.

We still go to hell

2009-08-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've been reading Will Ferguson's book Why I hate Canadians! and all of it rings true. It's a real funny book, but what's funny about it isn't his criticism of Canadians but the anecdotes themselves and the added commentaries coupled with perfect delivery. What's scary, because tragedy and comedy are always so close to one another, is the political and social complaints are spot on. They paint a perfect portrait of the Canadian problem. It's scary because they're is no solution to these issues. Simply put, Canadians are fucked, and they've fucked themselves into being fucked!

One of the recurring themes is that Canadians label themselves as 'nice'. That N word was the target of mockery by George Carlin in the 70s didn't we get the point? That's where this comic came to be. The book involves counter-culture shock, the reentry of Will Ferguson into Canada (the people, not the place). The idea is that Canadians think themselves as being so nice, but in truth they can be simple-minded pricks who come off as hypocrite, self loathing (uh-oh), self loving bastards of the first order. Dante's inferno would classify being with Canadian into one of his level of Hell, the sequel hits the selves next month.

Also, I'd like to take the time to point out that I am not religious in any way. I don't practice, I don't believe and I don't sympathize. I am not atheist in the way Scott Adams would describe atheists and I am not agnostic in the way I would describe it (on the fence). I am more philosophy, but not in the way most of you describe it. A lot of people believe philosophy is the practice of finding logical loophole.

Those people probably haven't read all the way down to this paragraph due to their short attention span. Basically, their goal is to find a subject people know least about, to avoid any educated objections, and then they rant on and win using objections that, once again, cannot be objected by the uneducated. They think they've won. Their strategy is the defensive one. If nobody can prove me wrong, I am right. The whole thing is backwards but don't try to explain that to them because that would be trying to prove them wrong, and they will not argue their point, just argue against yours.

It all makes sense now!

2009-08-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

I think I've twisted the Peter Principle a bit here and almost turned it into the Dilbert Principle. I get those mixed up because of the results they bring. To me, it seems the same but some of you more educated folks could easily be laughing at how I missed the point completely. It seems either way I get a laugh.

When I was reading about these principles (should it be capitol 'p'?) a light came on in my head. Like the light bulb an idea generates. In this case, it turns out neurons connected in my brain and it all made sense. These principles explain a lot of what is going on. It also explains why logical, time saving suggestions are brushed off. When someone doesn't understand something because it's too complicated to grasp and they are in a position of power, any argument can be easily tossed aside sight-unseen. Heck the smartest dumb person in a position of power can find loopholes to intimidate a smarter person.

The downfall of the intellectual is they require time to digest information, calculate outcomes and come up with a perfect offensive strategy. The idiot only requires an offensive strategy on the spot and anything goes including logic.

This is how it might go:

Dumbass: We are now going to ask our corporate agents to be validated by identifying the billing cycle of our customers. Retailers won't have to since we like to eat bananas together on the weekends and pretend we don't later. This will be an added security measure.

Smartass: We already have a software that validates their agent codes. The billing cycle appears on all customer bills, anybody with a bill could technically obtain private information from our database.

Dumbass: That's not true. Only our corporate agents have access to that information in their systems, we'll have to assume that people calling us, with the double validation, doesn't have a copy of the customer's bill with them.

At a meeting, that's usually how things end. The issue is that a few days later, it turns all agents have access to this information. The smartass was already embarrassed at that point and just like the judicial system people will refer back to the meeting as an antecedent: "Didn't we already discuss this at our previous meeting? Weren't you proven wrong?"

Wish I could...

2009-08-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Ever wished life was a little more consequence free? If it were so I'd probably have beaten people up for things they weren't truly responsible for. Whenever something at work doesn't align properly I look for a culprit. I want to know who is responsible for this mess and I want him or her to suffer for it. Often times I blame an entity or a department that, truth be told, I'm not sure if it is responsible for the issue at hand.

Let's say it is a Saturday and the Q2 finished on Friday. We are bringing in new plans to offer customers, but the information isn't available. The old plans have been expired and we were told strictly not to use the old plans even though they were in the system. I have a customer on the line who wants to activate today. I have no idea what I'm offering him. I feel embarrassed, humiliated and the customer will let me know I'm an idiot for sure. Well, that's when I want to know who left Friday night without realizing we are making money over the weekend. I work weekends so this scenario happens every time we enter a new quarter. Somebody fills in half the information and leaves thinking they'll finish up on Monday.

If that happens, I usually blame the vice president of our division and the marketing team. Now, bare in mind I don't know if the marketing team is responsible for filling in everybody on the information concerning these plans. Also, keep in mind that my work calls direct sales the marketing department. So here I am yelling at my coworkers that the marketing department has failed once again, to which they are confused. Why would direct sales impact the information flow? Obviously, to me, I mean those who market our product is responsible but they probably have some bullshit name like the conception department.

Also keep in mind those who are responsible for delivering the information to the front line aren't those who market the product. They must understand a five-times filtered communique sent out to them and then give the information away based on what they gathered from that brief memo. It is then filtered once again by barely high schooled graduates (previous filtration were also done by similar individuals) and finally if anything needs to be modified it is given directly to the front line.

A few months ago a fiasco happened. A bug in the systems removed $70 from a customer's credit on a new hardware. So if a customer wanted to purchase a $199.95 phone, and had $200 credit that phone would actually cost him $69.95. Everybody could do the math and realized this didn't make any sense. Well, we were barred from overriding the extra amount and informed overrides would face disciplinary actions. We were told they had placed a 'cap' on customer credits. Since the system deducted $70 from a customer's credit amount, this meant if a customer had a $50 credit, the phone would have an additional $20 cost.

I argued that wasn't a cap, but a deduction. I was scorned and blacklisted from my superiors for a bit. The following day, we were given the authorization to do the overrides. It was labelled a system error. Logic is meaningless in a big corporation. Even mathematical logic is useless against some people.

Sometimes I don't have to think about it

2009-08-19T07:00:00.001-04:00

I took my wife's Godson to the Natural Science museum in Ottawa on Tuesday. The whole trip was pretty awesome. Although the museum was only displaying half of it's exhibit due to renovations, the dinosaur exhibit was still open. This time around, they have replicated the looks of dinosaurs through life size statues. I let my Godson (I was suppose to sign the papers declaring this officially a couple of years back but with the birth of my daughter we got side tracked) take pictures of the whole exhibit. He seem to really enjoy himself and was quite amazed at what he saw.

When we got back home though, the pictures he took told a different story. Although he was interested in what he saw, he might not have learnt as much as I expected. It turns out the triceratops replica had testicles. He took pictures of it. Loads of them, memories he will cherish for the rest of his life I guess. Triceratops testicles was the subject around the table when we got back. He had hidden this from me, and so did my wife! Fucking testicles! Who put them there? Why put testicles on a triceratops to begin with? Is this even scientifically accurate? MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS PAID FOR THIS? Actually, my wife pointed something out. The bones and fossils were donated by Canadian imperial oils. Hmmm, it all make sense now. The final fuck you from the oil company.

We're not big shots

2009-08-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

Anybody telling you they've worked in calling centers and told customers off are probably liars. They are embellishing their stories. I've met plenty of these guys, I've worked customer service and have never done so, and never met anybody who truly has. I've met once a person who was very upright and realistic, but never impolite. Everybody else have been lying or making the stories sound better then they are.

When I customer says to go fuck yourself, you thank them. That's how it works in calling centers. That's also how it works in the retail business. As long as you don't tell the customers to go fuck themselves you're doing your job. It's the people at the top's job to ensure that the customers are robbed without them knowing about it. If they do, then that is why customer service exists: to face all the wrong decisions top people have made but without admitting it was a mistake.

I work with internal agents and it's the same nightmare. They aren't happy to be in the direct line of fire so they come up with all sort of crap. Some try to reason with me, others try the direct 'you're a fucking moron' approach. All don't work very well, but just like the customer service agent, I take it with a smile! I'm not actually here to defend logically decisions made higher up. I do have to reason with the just-about-to-riot employees with the least amount of negativity possible. It isn't pleasant, especially when you don't have the backup of those who have screwed those agents over. It's a very hit-and-run business I'm in.

I keep assuming things get better the higher one gets, but that is optimistic. It mustn't, but I'll only find out eventually.

Pathological liar

2009-08-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Do you have these guys lying around your work? I do, and I always wonder why they are around. Some are mere embellishers of stories, some are outright liars but all are annoying as fuck. Every conversation has to be given a 'verbatim' example of what they once did. Now I don't know about you guys, but incredibly rarely do I recount my stories with reenactments of what was said and how it was said. Actually, I might do it every once in a while when I'm angry which only turns out to be embarrassing for me and awkward for those who listen.

Back on the liars now, I do wonder how seniors possibly would wish to keep these people around. They stale meetings, they can't keep up a subject, they don't write proper reports, they don't rely on proper data, they can't be convinced they are wrong, etc. They aren't exactly the brains of the operation, but they do tend to intimidate the more socially awkward brainiacs. They keep wondering if this guy might be telling to truth. At first glance, the stories make sense but under observation they crumble. Why waste the time figuring out if he/she is telling the truth? Just fire these douche bags!

I think I needed to vent this out...

Why do I do this?

2009-08-12T07:00:00.001-04:00

Why in the world can't I keep my mouth shut? My wife does this to me on a weekly basis. For her, it's a way to obtain information. If I did something wrong, she found out about it she'll usually ignore me a bit or keep her answers short. When I ask why she is mad, she'll reply that she isn't. I then proceed to give her reasons to be mad at me in the form of questions. "Are you mad at me because I said you gained weight at work? No? Maybe because I said you snore like Fred Flintstone? No...is it because..." and I go on and on and on. Odds are good she was just angry because of my lack of involvement in some routine task, but now she's got the mother load of information on me.

Honestly, I don't have much to complain about. I don't tend to do bad things, or say horrible things but every once in a while I say or do something I find is borderline. She could find it hilarious, she could take it really bad. I usually don't mind walking that line, but I do hate to face the consequences of saying the wrong thing. The other night, I elaborated on her walking and where her center of gravity went. She thought it was hilarious, but in three days times she brought it back in my face. I'm guessing she took the time afterwords to absorb the information, digest it and regurgitate it. My words must have been a slow poison which taste great off the bat.

I also happen to be a horrible liar. I have a guilty conscience which doesn't help. I tend to be paranoid about sending the wrong message. All these things combine turn me into a walking lie detector, about my own lies. When I do lie, all sorts of signals go off, I'm worst then Pinocchio on getting away with lying. It's a good thing I guess, but it also means I had to sit out on a lot of fun activities when I was younger.

This is a bit embarrassing

2009-08-10T07:00:00.000-04:00

This happens every once in a while. I mispronounce a word. Sometimes, the mispronunciation has taken place for years! Things such as ashphalt! The contractor Mike Holmes pronounces it this way, so I'll stand by what the man says, but deep inside I know I can't keep the ruse up for too long.

This one actually happened at work the other day. I pronounced it ustensil. Why? Well, in French that's how it's written. I rarely get the two languages mixed up, but it does happen. It's twice the embarrassment because I always make a special point of noting other people's mistakes in both pronunciation and spelling. This blog is often not reviewed before it's published, so if anybody was to critic me by what I write here I wouldn't fare well. That doesn't seem to stop me from being a dick about other people's language issues...

Note: I have been writing embarassing without the double 'r'...spell check does the job at telling me I'm an idiot.

Scapegoat

2009-08-07T07:00:00.001-04:00

I've been reading a bit on the massacres of the Vietnam war and the shootings at protesters of the invasion of Cambodia. Both cases, some people were charged but not everyone who was involved faced the consequences of their actions. In the latter case, nobody faced the consequence of their actions actually.
It just seems to me like the company I work for does this a lot as well. We tell our customers other departments handles certain situation. It is true, but will that department do any of the things asked from out customers? We really have no idea. This is also problematic because escalating system, policy and procedural issues becomes difficult. If I bring something to my boss, he'll thank me for bringing it up and I'll never hear from it again. He also might point me to the right department, who will refer me back to my boss. Got to love the lack of enthusiasm over procedural changes sometimes.
Honestly though, I love the company I work for. The people within though not so much. Few are awesome, most are alright and a lot are douche bags. It's those awesome ones I want to work with everyday to ensure we do become the best communications company!

It's all a lie

2009-08-05T07:00:00.002-04:00

I'm getting fed up of advertisement declaring they are the biggest network in Canada or the number one. Honestly people, none of that is based on fact, in truth if you with to have your answers concerning these statements you'll get the longest run around, truth-bending answer you could possibly ask for.
Our marketing team will market plans stating they are only .10/minute when in reality they cost $100 a month! The way they see it is that if you have 1000 minutes for that price plan, then it comes to that cost per minute. They are right essentially, but the marketing is targeted at those who wish not to spend a lot of money. So when the explanation comes around for the question of choosing the price plan the customer feels cheated and doesn't wish to be activated. Marketing has no idea who their audiences are, and if they do then they have a brilliant way of alienating them.
This whole thing reminds me of this Dilbert comic.

If we could we would

2009-08-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

I know that the company I work for would love this scenario. If we could have somebody like Death working in our accounts receivable department to give a little extra incentive to pay we would. I know that ethics are low of the list of priorities, probably at the bottom, along with decency, common sense and team spirit.

I eavesdrop on a conversation between two employees today. Here is how the scenario went:

Person A: I don't need to be the boss, because everything I say is logical.

Person B: That's funny!

Person A: I don't have to explain myself, every time I make sense so my employees know!

Person B: Oh wow!

Person A: I just go up to them if they argue and I say, I'm the head coach and what I say goes!

Person B: Can I suck your dick?

Person A: You sure can!

The last two exchanges didn't happen, but it went along those lines. The 'head coach' guy kept faltering his own ego, and the person who was listening in kept kissing his ass. The whole thing left me thinking that most people advance at my company in the hopes of satisfying their ego. That's the furthest thing from team work I can think of. If you are in it for yourself, why would I want to work with you?

I'm probably not suited to say anything. I enjoy perfecting and offering the best service. Those things make me enjoy my job. I find that team work through brain storms works best to find the best solutions (along with detailed research of course) so maybe I'm in it for myself when I ask my coworkers to be company oriented.

Whever I get the chance

2009-07-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

My wife comes up with these things every once in a while. She doesn't mean it, but they make me feel quite cheap. What I do to get out of them is put doubt in her mind by turning the situation on itself such is the case in this comic. This was almost verbatim what happened a few days back.

I also place a lot of effort into explaining why I don't do certain things. Communication is key to any relationship, and I start by explaining the reasons why I don't communicate everything. My reasons usually involve some odd twisted paranoid logic. Honestly though, I have issues. A few comics back dealt with my paranoia over the polygraph machine and my mind swims with such things.

I had a friend once who promoted a new years event. While running his business he encountered a young man roughly the same age and promoted the event while at work. The young man never confirmed his presence and my friend wondered why. I knew he was only promoting the event, as it was part of a business he was setting on the side, but I curtly explained that maybe the young man thought my friend was asking him out on a date. It was obvious my friend hadn't, but there was a doubt in my friend's mind that lasts until today. Since then, he's never promoted any other events how odd.

It's as if we've never done this before

2009-07-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

Even though my company has been serving cellular service for over twenty years, it's as if we've never done this before. We still hemorrhage money because of bad investments and poor management. I'd have to say most of the time we do great, but when we fail it's quite embarrassing.

Here are two small examples. We recently created a bundled option, let's call it Party 12, this option combines two of the most popular options we offer. The issue is we already had a code called Two Options Combined that did the same thing. The new Party 12 is twelve dollars, the Two Options Combined is eleven dollars. Nobody expired the eleven dollar option and removed it from our agent's systems. They can still sell it and offer it.

The second example also deals with the Party 12 option. This one was put on to replace the Party 10 which offered the combined options plus texting. What we did is we kept the Party 10 codes in the systems, but changed the name to Party 12. The Party 12 code is also associated with the name Party 12. Another issue is that the old Party 10, which is expired, offered our customers the voicemail, just like the new one, but a smaller version of it. How agents who manage customer accounts can tell these two apart? Lucky guess I'd say.

I've flagged both issues, but they might fall of deaf ears. Hopefully, they won't and we'll all move on from these slight annoyances.

This is not a true story

2009-07-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Interestingly, all my meetings with lawyers have gone quite well. I've never met such outstanding people. Then again the bill was not mine to pay and they were very helpful.

There isn't much to say in this update. My vacation is over and I need time to collect my thoughts on going back to work. I've started publicising on adscar.ca which is owned by a co-worker. Check it out, you might like the products offered.

This paragraph started with 'I've already', my wife asked me a question, and I completely forgot where I was going with my thoughts. So that's it for this below caption...

We don't have the same sense of humor

2009-07-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

My wife and I were watching the news the other morning and some tragic story (what isn't tragic on the news?) was covered. Afterwards, I made a comment to which my wife must have assumed I meant the story to be funny. I don't remember what the covered story was about, let's assume it was about a murderer. All I remember about it was that there wasn't anything funny in it, but my wife thought there was potential there and proposed I make a comic out of it. When I objected, she simply proposed that a character turn into a leprechaun and pouf things would magically turn funny. Now that's comedy!

I told her that the story she came up with wasn't funny, but the proposed solution to the not-funny-problem was funny in context to our conversation. I'm not sure she took it as a compliment. She scorned me and said I never give her a chance. Now that's comedy!

Don't ask

2009-07-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

I can't really explain this one. I'm on vacation this week and waiting for my eBay orders to come in. Every day I get to the mailbox hoping for the best. So far, it's been disappointing. For some odd reason, I haven't been getting any mail. This is causing some form of paranoia in me. I must know why no mail has been coming, because surely not having any mail makes no sense. What about the junk mail? Could somebody be stealing my junk mail? I already know some nutjob's tried multiple times to open my National Geographic magazines so why not my junk mail?

The lady at the post office is extremely nice, maybe she's in on it. Who else is that nice? I'm suspicious of that operation. It doesn't help it's near a church. What if the small town I live in practices the occult? I do see a lot of gatherings at that church. I never bothered to see if they go in their with ceremonial robes and hoodies that cover their faces. What if they practice dark magic? Should I start preparing for the inevitable zombie horde sent out to convert me to their insane cult?

What about my wife and kid? She's been off maternity leave for a while now, maybe she's already one of them? All that bitching and nagging, maybe her plan is to slowly wear me down psychologically and strike at me when I'm weak. The baby must be in on it too, because she wakes up during the night and since I take care of her, I get exhausted. I should dig into this conspiracy deeper but today I'm taking my family up north to another small town, much smaller actually. A second chapter of this crazy cult maybe, I'm about to find out!

Anyways, moving on to the real stuff. I've been awaiting the arrival of my Atari 2600 and my top loader NES system. I've already plugged in my own 'VHS' version of it. My wife and I have been playing Super Mario bros. 3 which has been a blast. I've been having an issue with my power adapter. It turns out years ago we've worn it down to the point where the wire has to be bent in a certain way for contact to be made. Now, once it's bent the problem is to keep it bent. It works out find when I use the adapter's fat ass to keep the wire down, but twice now I get to Bowser and the system shuts off! I hope the top loader will fix this issue, as well as dust and pin contact issues. Can't wait!

When we'll all be senial

2009-07-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

I've got a black book I started to keep around to write down my ideas for comics and short stories. At first, the idea worked out great, I would write down however form the thought came into. After a while, I started to get paranoid. What if somebody picked up my book and read through it? I would be a laughing stock. My ideas aren't finished and they consist mostly of enigmatic phrases. So I started to make the phrases more ambiguous and soon only two word lines that are suppose to somehow remind me of what my thought was.

This system doesn't work. I've used it on my passwords when I was younger. Trying to keep everything very cryptic, but I ended up fooling myself. I couldn't remember the damn thing! And not one tool available to me would help except for that gray matter of mine. I guess this is what I should get used to when I'll be old and won't be able to remember anything. All my passwords, forgotten, and not a clue to help me out whether it is cryptic or obvious.

Retirement is quite promising.

Highschool reunion

2009-07-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was overhearing a few coworkers talk about their high school reunion at work. I was a bit freaked out because their year of graduation matched my birth year. I wasn't aware they were that old, and I wasn't aware I was that young. I still see them in the same way, but I don't dare reveal my age to them by fear of belittling myself.

A thought crossed my mind though, if they had managed to stalk, I mean find, their old high school mates through the Internet would it possible some did not wish to be found? I know personally that if some old high school mate came up to me arms wide open ready to reminisce I probably wouldn't greet him with joy. I'd be a bit annoyed at the thought that this guy has waste so much time finding me, and now I had some social contract to give him some of my time which I could have placed to better use. If at least it had been planned in advance, and I had a choice to reject the invitation.

I'm not sure anybody from my high school is missed. I've pretty much seen those I care to see, and those I do not have stayed away. I've been double lucky I guess. I'm usually not a person who enjoys change to begin with, so off the bat I would have probably preferred to stick around when we graduated, but that feeling was short lived when I got the freedoms of college and university.

Vocabulary issues

2009-07-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

One big mistakes companies make is thinking short term when it comes to customers. It's very easy to make that mistake when so many people's jobs really on immediate revenues. Often times, letting customers leave because they don't bring in enough money can be fatal over the long run.

Where I work, it seems we enjoy not making money because the phrase 'he was costing the company more then anything, we weren't making money off him!' is often heard. I'm not sure why, but apparently we created a lot of price plans and made a lot of special offers to the point where we are securing our bankruptcy. My guess is that those who say this are part of those who have no true idea how much revenues our customers are taking in versus the cost of keeping said customer, but that's just me.

It seems quite awkward to have so many customers costing us something. Not only that, but we consistently come up with ways to charge our customers for any little thing, so how much money are we truly losing by keeping these guys on? Are we simply trying to keep our heads above the water? Well, I'm not important enough to either know that answer or contribute into making sure that answer is 'we're thriving!'.

Marketing is key

2009-07-13T07:00:00.002-04:00

We have these guys at work who's job all day is to come up with ways to position bad news to customers. They also serve the purpose of feeding lines to front line agents things like "to better serve you and to align ourselves with the realities of today's market, we are going to charge you $40 more on each bill."

I keep thinking these guys are the definition of insanity. Their job is to come up with arguments that aren't valid. The worst is if you read most of what is told, it is easily refutable. I pity those who have to use their lines, but mostly I hate the guys who agree to pay for those piece of writings.

On to other things, I had this plan to send myself my comic through my email and complete this post with the computer in my daughter's room. We are currently using that room to store my new kitten while she is taking her medication because of worms she got where we purchased her. My daughter is sleeping in our room, in her crib. The problem is that my kitten has all her claws and loves using them. So when I go into her room in the evening to give her her pill she goes ape shit and claws the fuck out of me. I'm her only social contact because my wife refuses to enter the room, and my other cat is not allowed in there in case she catches the bacteria.

So I sent myself an email with the comic attached to it, hoping to complete it while dodging razor sharp claws. This was to allow myself some time with the kitten, as I stated earlier she doesn't get much socializing. At this point, I should also mention we took out my desk chair because it was made of leather and she had begun to scratch the fuck out of it.

So here I am, kneeling before my keyboard, writing this and avoiding a slow, painful death. I just came back from checking my emails, and guess what? The attached comic is missing! I'll have to upload it some other time, if I live to do it...

Corporate democracy

2009-07-10T07:00:00.000-04:00

I was in training last Friday and half of Monday to realign our policies to avoid having customer service touch problems we already solve. The training was interesting, but it often elevated into problematic gray areas and how we can address them so everyone in my department is aligned. The conclusions were as followed:

- Whatever we chose on would be eventually twisted by those who have to apply it

- The company wasn't paying us to think

- Well, once we got to point number two, we got on with the meeting.

My last words were of complaint towards the way they gathered statistics to evaluate trainers. The way they do it goes against everything I was taught in research method classes. Actually, the gathering of the statistics makes sense, it's the results gathered from them that doesn't. Somehow, my company twisted how results are gathered to match what they believe makes sense.

Where I work, if something isn't written in stone, the argument that it isn't written can be used to both not work and work.

Here's an example:

We were told not to credit any accounts. Those actions were the jurisdiction of customer service. When that was brought up, the trainer asked 'where is this written that we don't do it?'. This was his argument. It wasn't written that we did not do credits. He showed us where it was written how to do it and thought this was proof that we could do it. I didn't bother pointing out that it wasn't written that we had to since I enjoy a bit more freedom at work.

We also discussed how we needed to align ourselves with where the company was heading. All I could think about was Hitler reincarnated into a non-physical entity, but into our company itself; A faceless goul haunting customers to bleed every single penny out of them and convince them it was for their own good.

What's wrong with calling an asshole, an asshole?

2009-07-08T07:00:00.000-04:00

Our schedules are released nearly a month in advance at work. The inner portions of those schedules are always interchangeable should the need arise, but the end times and starting times are usually not touched without a forty-eight hour notice. This is the Work Force policy. I can't change my ends and starts without giving them a significant notice. Fine with me, I don't have an issue with that.

No issue, until they fucked it up. Last Thursday, they sent me an email to say the following day my shift start would change. Well, what the fuck is that? Less then twenty-four hours they changed it! I didn't mind that time because it was only half-an-hour difference, but the mere arrogance that they reserved themselves the right to do so pissed me off.

Well the law agrees with them. I've checked out labor laws, and nothing mentions that. As a matter of fact, no laws force them to give any time in-between shifts. They could potentially schedule me until midnight one day, and have a my shift starting at one in the morning the following.

Our human resources department might disagree with what happened, but how is it in their interest to fight against those who sign the checks?

I've called the department who approved of the change as well as whoever scheduled the change arrogant assholes, but I'm sure it's fallen on deaf ears. Now that I think about it, maybe it's best nobody important heard me...

My wife's going to get me killed

2009-07-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

All this happened a few days ago, after my daughter had fallen asleep my wife went directly to bed. I didn't follow because I had a few things to finish before I could officially call it in. For one thing, I had to give my new kitten a pill due to a bacteria present in her excrement. So I went in, gave her her pill, and when I was out of the room we keep her in, I remembered a question I wanted to ask my wife. I proceeded into the bedroom to ask her the question, but I couldn't find her in bed. This seemed odd.

I started to wonder where she could possibly had gone to. I checked the bathroom, but the door was opened and the light wasn't on. I looked in the living room, kitchen, dining room and storage room and still nothing. She had complained our new downstairs neighbor smoked so I looked outside to see if maybe she had gone out to talk to him. She did, and she was. I don't know why in the world she decided to confront him at 9:30pm at night, without telling me, without shoes and without planning it out but she did. Judging by their body language they were in an argument and when she walked away back towards the entrance hall I could tell it hadn't yielded the results desired.

I must mention at this point that we own our condo, and the person living downstairs is renting off some old hag. If we have a problem with the renter, it would be best to take it out with the owner and not him, but my wife didn't see it that way.

By now, of course, it is 10 o'clock at night and she's in a fury and just realized that by making an enemy of him we weren't going to have a pleasant night. So I started to look up as many legal web-sites as possible to figure out a legal plan to evict the man. Well, no laws in Quebec limit people from smoking inside their own place. The best I cam up with were workarounds such as charging for cleaning and maintaining of common spaces and maybe the possibility of fining the owner for allowing the smoke inside common spaces. The latter is a huge stretch and would probably never work out. The former would require the votes of everyone at the annual meetings, which won't take place for another nine months.

I made the calls to the president of the condo association which weren't returned. My next offensive strategy is to hot box the hell out of the hallway and see who reacts. That or throw a stink bomb through their window.

My wife's plans are incredibly flawed. If you thought mine stunk (no pun intended), these are atrocious. She plans on moving, but we don't have the money yet to place a full deposit on a house, and because of the recession we'd lose money on our place by selling. I actually don't remember the other plans she came up with because I had quick objections to them and she didn't elaborate on them.

So once I muster the courage to try out my immature plans, I'll get back to you. Obviously, I'll probably never execute them.

Also, I finally realized that for a whole month I had been mislabeling my comics. You see, I name them after the creation date. Last month, I labelled them as 07, which is July, instead of 06, which is June. It's been corrected, but I can't wait for Blogger to tell me I'm uploading twice the same image and see how annoying it's going to be to fix that.

I'm afraid of being innocent

2009-07-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

This is a true concern of mine. I'm afraid of being innocent, and found guilty! I'd be too nervous taking a polygraph it would definitely show that I would be lying, when I would not be. Every time I'd give a truthful answer, I'd sweat a little more in fear the machine would detect that I am not. I guess this is one piece of technology I don't trust.

What if it isn't the machine but the douche bag reading out the results? What if that's the guy I cut off on my way here? What if knows my wife and has been looking for a solution to bumping me off? I don't know the answers to these questions, and I wish I didn't have floating in my mind when I take such a test.

At work, things are looking gloom. I'm not entirely happy with what I do and I don't have time to write out suggestions because of the workload. I started on a long essay as to what needs to be done to properly gage our service quality levels, but that drifted into case after case of agents fucking up. I needed to go over their work and fix things before both the company and customer started to lose money.

So...looking forward to getting my Atari 2600 and my Vic-20!

Bailout plans for stupid decisions

2009-07-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

At work some douche bag continuously proposes departmental name changes or some other meaningless vocabulary change while some other douche bag keeps approving of them. This always infuriates me because when it comes down to making important and significant changes, the budget is always brought up to cut me mid-sentence. In the last 3 years, my department's name has changed at least fives times. Each time, new spreadsheets are created, access changed, third-party programs have aesthetic modifications, documents modified, IVRs, profiles, routings, courses given anew and so on which seems like a nightmare to whoever coordinates the change.

This reminds me back a few years when Dorval airport was changed to Pierre-Eliot Trudeau airport. What a fucking mess that was, all the metal roadwork signs had to be changed. Yet the roads we drive upon to see them were full of holes and started to have ass-grooves to make offroading seem smooth. What a crock of shit.

Back to my work though, I've never seen such butchering of two languages. In school, we took for granted that no matter how bad our work turned out, a teacher was going to go over it to ensure it was at least well written bad work, no such luxury when you're out into the corporate world.

I do have to admit I'm not the type to review my writing as much. At work I do so religiously because I'd hate to make an ass of myself. Turns out, however, that the written skill level of those who end up reading my work isn't that great (but of course, there are obvious exceptions).

Creativity belongs to whom?

2009-06-29T07:00:00.001-04:00

The thought crept into my mind when I brought my laptop to work a few Sundays back to complete a comic. The mental issue I had was that I somehow believed I'd have an issue with someone rating me out saying I'm stealing company money by doing it at work.

My argument is simple, I'm paid to accomplish tasks. Since those tasks relies on volatile and erratic patterns of when those tasks would be called upon they decided to pay me by the hour. This also secures them my mind for completing other which aren't as volatile in deadlines. I'm quite happy to accomplish those things, but during dead periods, periods in which I've completed all tasks and no new ones are present or going to be present, I get paid to sit around and do nothing. They'll say I should read up things I already know, written by employees who have no English or French writing skills. I usually show up in advance to work to fill myself in on those tidbits, which I'm not being paid for.

I always firmly believed creativity belongs to the creator. Apparently a lot of people disagree with me, what with all the ghost writers, uncredited writers and what not, it's difficult to get credited for your work nowadays. I do understand the point of view, but I question their filter over what they feel belongs to them. For instance, I disagree I aught to donate blood based on the condition they are paying me during specific hours to do what they tell me to do.

I think I'm going to need a good lawyer...

Let it be known in secret

2009-06-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

Don't tell anybody for fear of non-stop in-your-face mannerisms might emerge, but my wife is right more often then I give her credit for. This story isn't true, but part of it it.

I recently purchased a Vic-20 computer/video game console off ebay with a couple of games, wires and a controller. The story behind this is that it turns out when we moved, I had a vic-20 in my room which had no apparels, just the keyboard. I turned to my brother for guidance to which he informed me that the other vic-20 we had, along with all wires, games, controllers and apparels had been thrown out a year prior by our father. To this, I threw it out.

Why in the world I would do such a thing? Well, obviously I wasn't being wise. It was a working unit. I should have at least given it to video game collectors so it would have a good home.

I'm also considering getting an atari 2600. We'll see how my wife takes the vic-20.

This is why she won't play with me

2009-06-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

It started off as a tease, but it escalated into an annoyance. My wife and I use to play certain video games together, but it's behind us now. The last we ever touched was LittleBigPlanet which we use to play at night when my daughter fell asleep, this was during her first 4 months of life. It was a fun bonding time. Once it was over though (and it was short lived), getting the stickers became a nightmare between us. I think this is where we split for video games. Since then, whenever I turn on the console and play single player at something I get an aggressive sigh from the kitchen.

I sort of asked for it I guess. I use to tease her for being bad at games. It made her laugh at times, but now the laugh is gone, and replaced with a sense of accomplishment when she kicks my ass.

I have a need to plug in the old Vic-20 and play my old games again. The only thing is I left it at my parent's house when I left (seeing as it belonged to my dad in the first place) and nobody can find it. The accepted theory is that it was thrown out. A shame, quite a shame.

Porcelain King

2009-06-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

I fucking hate my work's logic. To be politically correct, they thought that universally people wouldn't want to be denied the right to pray, so they made an exception for it. You see, whenever I go offline when I'm supposed to be online, I have to have a valid reason for it. These reasons are sent through exception codes to be approved by my boss. So essentially, I can be approved to go pray, but not to go to the bathroom.

Well, what the fuck is that? If anything going to the bathroom is way more important then prayer time and I don't give two fucks where you're from! I understand, on the other hand, that having to go to the bathroom so badly that you have to log off doesn't happen often, whereas praying under a schedule might not match online timing. On that basis, I do understand the reason for the exception. What I don't understand is that having to go to the bathroom must happen more often then having to go pray. This has to be a daily issue when you manage thousands of employees! Who the fuck thought this shit up? I complained to my coworkers who seemed too fucking scared to question the right to fucking go to the bathroom over the right to pray.

There is no logical argument against this. Let me put it to you this way: When one has to go, if one doesn't go physical harm will come. If this physical harm was to happen, one would not be able to pray or work. So why the fuck isn't the exception in the God damned system?!

I'll tell you why. By some reverse logic, the possibility of having to go to the bathroom is so universal every fuck nut thinks they are an authority on the subject. Well this fuck nut wishes to tell anyone who says it's possible to never have to go to the bathroom so badly that it keeps you from filling your task to serious wake the fuck up. Never met a person who didn't have this problem happen to them, I've only met people who are too shit pissed to discuss the issue. What's so taboo about bodily functions that are universal and essential to survival?

Generous hypocrite

2009-06-19T07:00:00.001-04:00

I'm a generous hypocrite. I've given to charities, I've purchased chocolate I didn't want and donated to people I didn't care for. I'm not hypocrite for my donations. I'm a hypocrite for giving, but never directly and not being able to do it directly.

I've never stopped on the street to give a poor person money directly. Somehow, I've always felt like their would be no justification for not giving him all the money I have on my at that time. The way I see it is that I probably don't need the money, and this person does. So to avoid the whole thing, I ignore them as I walk into the Salvation Army to donate things I feel poor people would benefit from. How rude!

I've been getting into odd mood swings lately. I can't seem to remain consistent towards balancing work and the rest of my life. Funny I put it that way when work takes so much of my life. Preparing to go to work, driving to work, getting ready at work. In truth, work takes up more time then they pay me for!

My fortune cookie says

2009-06-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

Some guy at work came around stating he got his fortune from a teller. She basically told him what he wanted to hear and he sees this as a sign. I'm usually a skeptic, but I'm a bit of a coward, so if a Gypsy comes around I don't question her methods. On the other hand, if someone who has been to a teller and comes back with what he believes is a cryptic message I don't mind humiliating them. So far, I've not had one person bringing back anything that was truly cryptic.

The guy at work basically was really happy to hear what he had been told to the point he showed off his 'future' as if it was proof of greatness to come. What an odd man.

Two years later, I've finally decided to continue reading the sixth Harry Potter book. I had read the first two chapters two years ago, after finishing Order of the Pheonix, and never picked it up since. I actually hated Order of the Pheonix. I couldn't stand how only the last 50 pages were important. It seemed to wrap up with more oddities then solutions. A bunch of characters admitted their reasons for being cold towards Harry was that they were cowards. That's a great fucking explanation. It only comes 800 pages into the damn thing!

The store is moving at an incredibly slow pace. I've finished a few baby shirts, but they aren't anything super original. It seems I've got timing issues, and a lack of overall design ideas. I don't want to label a bunch of stuff with Reel 3 Presents, because I don't think it would be worth buying. I'd rather having interesting things that can be worn to work or in public. I'm not a big logo fan myself, so I'm trying to keep it clean. We'll see how it turns out. I'm only up to about 5-6 different items; Nothing to fush about just yet.

I hate the birthday calendar

2009-06-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

At work we have a birthdays of the month calender. I've been at the company two birthdays now and each year it's the same. A bunch of people whom I don't speak with come around to wish me a happy birthday. I'm not sure if they do this to jump start a friendship, but I could do without it. Call me ungrateful.

The other way around, I don't give two shits. I did notice a few people of interest on there, but all of that is informational. I don't bother storing it in my memory, and I don't bother making an effort to go around wishing happy birthday. I treat others the same way I'd like to be treated. You know, I do get that logic, but I also see the flaw in it. As the comic states, the world wouldn't be a better place if people used me as a social model.

I just bought a new kitten. She's real nice and cuddly. My older bengal cat is not taking the new arrival well. Hopefully this will get better in time.

Do it in house...

2009-06-12T08:07:00.002-04:00

I'd have to say that three quarters of my job consists of workarounds for the systems we use. These systems, from what I've been told, cost a damn fortune to the company. This doesn't count the amount of hours wasted trying to figure out how to complete simple tasks such as number swaps and esn swaps. These procedures are deemed too complicated for regular agents. Simple number changes are becoming a huge drag.

I'm almost convinced my company skips the troubleshooting portion of software purchases/upgrades. Every time something new is added months of problems surface and more money is wasted figuring out solutions. We've recently removed certain contract terms, so it means anyone who activated the day prior to these changes on a longer term, but wishes to give the company more money a month by upgrading their price plan cannot unless they pay penalty fees by downgrading the term. Why the fuck would we force him to do so? This makes so very little sense, and these elitist assholes who get paid to come up with this shit aren't ever going to see the consequences of their poor decisions. It's beyond frustration!

I understand the difficulties of building a software in house for a company. I dissagree it would cost more on the long run.

It's in their blood

2009-06-10T07:59:00.003-04:00

I'm pretty annoyed with Canadian hockey fans. I don't watch hockey and I don't give two shits about it. I don't mind those who have strategic or statistical perspectives on the game. I mind the morons who make it a religion. This guy made a video about it. The video represents everything I hate about Quebecois.

I remember going to a Canadian game, and the idiot sitting behind me wouldn't stop praising how the game was played. The two first minutes he wouldn't shut up, nonstop "Holly shit! This is amazing, did you see that?!". He lost steam eventually, but he was going nuts over nothing. The puck didn't even come close to any of the nets. He was just being a psychotic fuck.

On the other hand, at the game, Al Gore was present which was an honor.

What I find even more confusing is when women enjoy hockey on the same level as men. I grew up in a more traditional home I guess, where men liked sports and women thought men were animals. My wife is like that. I converted her into a hockey not-give-a-shitter a few years back.

A disease

2009-06-07T19:35:00.002-04:00

I have this disease that once I pick up something, any sequel that follows gets to me. I must play/watch/read any sequel! I've invested a certain amount of time, and I want to see it through until the end! That is why every James Bond that's come out in the last 20 years has been watched, except for Quantum of Solace. My wife essentially broke the cycle. Her lack of enthusiasm and emotional blackmail kept me away from the film, which was a piece of shit apparently. I'm quite grateful towards her, she got me out of a horrible loop!

Because of her, I've skipped out the last Pirates of the Caribbeans which, after the second makes me realize I also got lucky. She almost got me over Spider-Man 3, which I wish I had never seen now. What trash that was, if I wanted to watch pre-puberty kids duke it out in childish manners I would've taken a step into a time machine back to when I was more of an idiot. I simply couldn't resist a Sam Raimi film.

I've also skipped out Ring 2 and The Grudge 3 which, again, were close calls. Mythbusters proved that you could polish shit, but there isn't much to do with this dung.

Oh yeah, I've also been watching a lot of Angry Video Game Nerd lately.

My wife's logic

2009-06-05T09:27:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure how the original idea wrote itself out. This is one of those cases where I drew the comic first with a vague idea of where I was going in terms of writing. I finished drawing it, and three days later I wrote it out. In the mean time, I had the words down like I wanted them but in the three days it took me to pick up the strip I forgot what I was suppose to write.

This week, and next week, WFM managed to schedule me working until 8:45pm which is a pain. On the plus side, I don't have any traffic, but to my wife it doesn't make a difference. If I finish at 8:45pm, she expects me home at 9:00pm even though I live over half-an-hour away. If I dare get into traffic (which is the case on every regular shift I have) she blames me. She doesn't understand, she essentially gives me attitude for it. She's a bit spatially and geographically late so it's hard to argue every day with somebody who doesn't understand the concept. Anything short of teleportation, she won't be happy.

The name of the problem

2009-06-01T07:01:00.002-04:00

I've said it before, but my previous boss and I don't see eye to eye. This is close to a conversation we had when he came back from parental leave. For some odd reason, he got very defensive when I began questioning the choice of his daughter's name. I didn't question his choice in the sense that I disagreed with it, I was merely questioning how he came to choosing it. The conversation never escalated to what's written here but it might have eventually.

The guy is a great boss though, real good at it, but just not the right boss for me.

Looks like I might be cancelling the moving. We haven't found anything on the market worth the trouble for. This is quite unfortunate, I was looking forward to having more space. With my daughter, it was getting a bit crowded in my current place.

I finished Resident Evil 5 twice now and I'm about to finish it on Veteran, which I hope will be under five hours. It's also, sadly, one of the other reasons why updates last week and the previous week were a bit slow. I'm about to get InFamous so we'll see how that takes up my time. Can't wait for my trip to the store today.

I forgive but don't forget

2009-05-30T09:55:00.002-04:00

This story is half truth. On my eighteenth birthday a couple of friends insisted I go to a strip club, they even paid for alcohol and entry. I didn't want to be ungrateful so I accepted their offer and went. Once in, they paid me a lap dance in a private booth. The dance was $10, but my friend only had a $20. Once I got in the back, being pretty drunk, the girl must have noticed I felt uncomfortable. I simply don't like the idea of objectifying women. Once the dance was over, I gave her the $20, she took it and never gave me the change. When I got back to my table, my friend asked for the change, I reached in my pocket and lucky enough I had a $10 bill. So essentially we were both down $10. I never told him what truly happened with the money.

The second portion happened to another friend. Years after I stopped partying with them, he went to a strip club and I guess had more then a lap dance. He fell very ill following the activity and, paranoid as he was, blamed the stripper. Turns out he had the flew. It had more to do with him passing out in the shower and being woken up by a cold water spray then anything else.

I don't think any of these stories are proud moments of my life, but man do they make good comedy. My wife, on the other hand, didn't see any of the humour in it. I wonder why...

Class of 05

2009-05-28T08:37:00.003-04:00

I've been developing an inferiority complex lately with old friends from either high school or college. I haven't completed my University studies and haven't gotten the time to get back to them because of work and my daughter. I plan, obviously, to get back to school whenever I'll get a chance. I'm looking forward to giving my daughter an example of grown ups going to school. Given my wife and I track record with school I think my daughter's going to need some encouragement.

I've always been good when it came down the material, but hated the format. I hated being told what to do, how to do it, what to think and how to think. I despised attendance and some of assignments. So essentially I got great grades, I just didn't give a...

My inferiority complex developed because of the fields I'm interested in and those I wished to study. Turns out my friends did complete their studies and are working internationally, travelling and meeting exciting people and new worlds. I'm basically researching material through magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias and the works while they participate in writing history. It's becoming a bit ridiculous because I'm living a great life and given the opportunities to do the things they do I might actually turn them down for my family's sake. I wouldn't feel any regret for turning the opportunity down either. I find myself more jealous towards the knowledge these people acquired while I don't have access to it's vastness.

I think the fact that I'm aware of the issue makes it work. I'm torn between finding it hilarious, and finding it sad. Like I said, it's ridiculous to feel this way and I'm basing a lot of it on a lack of true knowledge of my friend's work.

Nevertheless, it's awesome to have friends in high places. Those guys really deserved it, and humanity is better off having them there.

Beating a dead horse

2009-05-26T13:14:00.002-04:00

For some odd reason, almost ten years too late, Dr. Gonzo wrote for Tech Radar an article detailing issues CS has been having for years. I'll spare you the read, here's what he's complaining about: Bunny hopping, hit boxes and exploits. For some odd reason, this comes as news to some, and others seem to be enlightened by his antics.

I first played CS when it was in early beta stages. I'd like to name the specific one, but I assure you I don't remember. I remember the huge revolution of beta 7.1 offering drivable vehicles which never took off to my utmost joy. I disliked the changes, and I especially wasn't big on the new community it brought with it. I remember the map designer of cs_docks and cs_siege committing suicide and the whole community offering their condolences to his family. I also remember it going retail, and all the jack ass ex-Quakers migrating. It seemed we had hooked the good ones, but the retail brought in the rest.

So, here we are nearly 10 years later. Hit boxes, exploits, hacks and bunny hopping is still an issue? It was then, it is now, it will be later. Can it be tweaked to make it favorable? Yes, but exploits will prevail, which will lead to other problems. Simply put, Counter-Strike is a right-of-passage game. If you enjoy gaming, enjoy programming, enjoy tweaking, enjoy skill grinding, Counter-Strike is for you. CS will be around and has been cemented as a right-of-passage. If I meet someone who hasn't touched the game ever and feels has a right to speak about gaming history, I ignore him. End of story.

Tiny gap

2009-05-20T08:42:00.002-04:00

Well, unfortunately I had some steam going and the train has come to a halt for a few days. If you've noticed, there has been a short lack of updates. I usually tried to keep it a comic every two days, but I'm way off that schedule now. The last comic was Sunday, and here we are, Wednesday and nothing!

I actually have them written out, but not drawn. The reason for the delay is that I am in the process of packing my stuff and getting ready to move! I'm looking for a new place and selling my own while coordinating things with the bank. All the while, I've got my daughter and my wife to contend with.

So fear not, the hiatus should be pretty short. (I'm hoping to get one comic up tonight). It should be noted that when I move I might have an issue with delays for uploading comics since I might not have the internet hooked up and it's frowned upon to use the computers at work for personal use even outside of operating hours.

He's a hard ass, how did you not know?

2009-05-17T08:54:00.003-04:00

This is old news, but about a month or so ago Billy Bob Thornton did a Canadian interview in which he was displeased by the mention of his cinema career. He wished to keep it about his music. Following this, he proceeded to say Canadians were 'like mashed potatoes without gravy' which sent a lot of over sensitive Canadians over the edge with unjustified anger.

I don't really see where the insult is. If as a crowd we're not violent, something that contradicts some band's experiences at the Olympic stadium in Montreal, which inspired 'The Wall' from Pink Floyd, then it is so. If he enjoys violent crowds, then we are mashed potatoes without gravy to him. I fail to see where the issue lies. I find it hilarious that he cancelled the rest of his tour though. I'm as confused as he looked during the first part of the interview. Is an unhappy crowd too much to handle for him? I thought he was used to that shit! The Canadian flu must have been real strong.

Nevertheless, the rest of the band was absolutely fantastic to listen to. These talented individuals should be front runner for PR. They looked interesting and definitely had something to say. Too bad Thornton managed to hijack the second portion of the interview away from them. I guess he didn't realize that acting the way he did placed more focus on the fact that he has a career in cinema then had he simply continued on without mentioning in.

I always thought he was a hard ass. I wasn't a bit surprised by this. He is who he is, and you should know what to expect when you interview such a man.

I shouldn't make fun of this

2009-05-14T15:09:00.003-04:00

At work, we started to discuss how the company might start firing employees. We've discussed different systems but essentially, we settled on monetary or random systems. The one displayed in the comic isn't so far fetched.

I realize I probably shouldn't make fun with the unemployment rate rising slowly. I just watched a piece of the Colbert Report where he dished out of $1,000 lunches around the city of New York. From the $1,000 pizza to the $1,000 sundae, I couldn't help but laugh as he called their recipe 'lunatic'. He was asking owners whether they believed the lack of $1,000 meal orders were linked to the economy or the lack of sensibility. Needless to say, the economy was to blame.

I just purchased Resident Evil 5, and I have to admit I've always been a huge fan of the series. I actually didn't feel Resident Evil 4 was a true canon, but the gameplay was decent. I managed to get all S rankings on the bonus stages, so I figured more of the same with the fifth game couldn't be so bad. I'm hoping the cooperative mode might assure my wife's cooperation, but given her skills I'm not sure she's a wise partner choice. Only time will tell...

Unpleasant conversations

2009-05-12T20:28:00.004-04:00

Back when I used public transit a friend of mine asked if I could accompany her to the gynecologist. I, out of curiosity, being only 16 years of age, went along with it. I remember very little of the waiting times and the appointment itself. What I do remember is staring at the people in the waiting room, analysing their illness and wondering why they found themselves in such a place.

When the appointment was over, my friend and I hopped on the next bus back home. On the way, she got on the phone with her boyfriend and began to discuss her diagnosis. Perhaps I should mention at this point that my friend did get around, so you can imagine the little itchy symptoms and diseases she described. As I was riding the bus and she spoke of her illnesses out loud, I couldn't help but look around at the faces of the people listening in. I believe it was at that point I began to realise a certain buffer zone had been created between us and the rest of the people in our disease filled vehicle.

God I'm tired

Yesterday afternoon was the first time my feet began to cause me ill. I first began to notice the odd sensations in my right foot around 4pm. It was this dingily, itchy sensation that began to feel familiar to me. This story of itchiness has nothing to do with the above anecdote just to inform you.

I began scratching my foot and slowly the itch became a real problem. I was still at work with forty-five minutes to go, my extremity began to swell up as it itched and burned more intensively. I decided to take off my shoe, at which time I realized I had been walking around all day and the smell that came from that area wasn't the most pleasant. I don't generally have food odor, and this odor wasn't linked to my itchy, burning - and now swelling- foot but it didn't strike me as very important to attract the attention of any passer by so I put my shoe back on.

The rest of work, and following drive home, was met with frustration. Since it was my driving foot, I had to hold in the scratching and not think of how small my shoe was beginning to feel. The closer home I got, the less intense it became.

I got home in one piece, removed my socs and began analysing what had happened. I couldn't find much evidence of what had transpired so I continued on as if nothing had happened.

An hour later, I began to feel a little red spot on my other foot. This wasn't good news. As I gave my daughter her bottle, I began to feel the spot's intensity worsen and the fact that I had nothing else to do but sit there made the situation that much worst. I started to scratch the itch with my previously problematic appendage which felt great, but within moments the itch became so intense I couldn't take it anymore. My wife came around and applied ice, which was painfully cold. I bit my cheek and let the ice to it's work. Once melted and my foot once again was room temperature, the itch fought back and spread all across the top and bottom of my foot.

I started panicking and applied any cream I could find in the medicine cabinet (big mistake). Anything I threw at the itch only made it worst. This is about the time I realized my foot had swollen up, the top had become purple and my toes felt like balloons.

I called a nurse line to get advice, but after 15 minutes of waiting time and another 15 minutes of being ridiculed and laughed at by the nurse, she pointed towards the emergency for further treatments. My wife and I waited for my parents to show up so they could take care of our daughter while we left for the emergency room. By the time they showed up, it was already ten o'clock pee mmm! We quickly changed the teams, and I opted to go with my dad to the emergency room. I grabbed my Penny-Arcade volume 5 (great book by the way) and off we went to the emergency room.

When I got into my father's car, for a brief second I felt this was the right decision. When he hit the gas to back up, shifted into gear and screeched his tires to get off our non-busy street and onto the main road I began to question my judgement. We headed into the dark at twice the speed limit, and the wonderfully designed 180 degree curve to the highway never felt more dangerous. My father slowed down in the middle part, but back on the small streets - and into the hospital parking- it was back to tires screeching. He assured me he knew he was going, with what he called a 'membership' but that didn't come as a comfort. Speed bumps felt like we went from hyperdrive into slow motion, which - of course- was followed by more hyperdrive.

In the emergency room, we were met at the door by a mask/visor wearing guard demanding we clean our hands with that dry-off soap. Once registered, we began to wait for the triage nurse. I'd say fifteen minutes later we were called to see her. Once inside, I was asked a series of grueling questions to assign a number to my name. My father was the cross examiner to ensure that my story matched the one I had told him before we left for the hospital. I was then told to see a doctor the wait was long -up to 8 hours.

My father and I split and went to the pharmacy instead where he began to ask questions faster then the pharmacist could answer. When he went away for a couple of seconds, I showed a bit of sympathy asking her if we were really allowed to bother her with all this. She politely answered it was her job. I'm not sure she got the point of my question. I don't believe her job is a diagnostician -which is what she was being hijacked for- but merely an expert on products available in the pharmacy.

Cash, pay, ignition, tires screeching and we were both off back towards my house.

On the way home, my dad explained to me his theory on nurse talk as if they had a separate language. He educated me that her tone of voice and look was a secret code that warned us it wasn't the best idea to stick around the emergency room and better to go home.

Back home, bye bye parents, baby wakes up, feed baby, go to bed. Three AM, baby wakes up, give bottled, baby goes to bed three thirty. Baby wakes up four thirty, take her in my arms, take a nap with her until five thirty. I place her down in her crib and begin my day.

I start the car and notice my radio channels are no longer properly programmed. The whippers don't seem to work that fast at all. A couple of minutes pass, and the radio dies. Slowly, the car loses speed until finally it gives no more juice.

I finally ended up getting a towing, where I met a hell of a guy. Quite a character, real great at his job and efficient I might add.

A couple of hours of work later, I finish this comic. Which I had hoped to be up last night, I write this, upload the picture, and I am off to bed.

Forgive my changing of tenses throughout the story and syntax mistakes. Good night!

Get your shirts!

2009-05-09T22:02:00.003-04:00

While I was thinking of shirt designs, the thought that I couldn't wore my own stuff at work dawned upon me. I just can't get around the thought of censorship. If there seems to be a need to tell people how to dress at work, something is wrong with the employees you chose. It seems like more work to make up a rule and get it imposed.

I've just finished Penny-Arcade's third book, which was awesome, and am looking forward to dipping into number four! After that, I've got some Indiana Jones comics from the 80s/90s which I had never heard of, not being a fan of comics myself. A friend of mine, whom I tend to refer to as the last man I would want to play against in football, happens to be a big comic book fan going against all expectations. Much like Vin Diesel turned out to be a D&D player.

The store should be open shortly. I'm aiming for a at least 10 different products and design before I'll open it up. I'd hate the idea of 30 items with the same design, I personally wouldn't shop at such a store.

I'm not sure if this qualifies

2009-05-07T20:49:00.002-04:00

It's been a tad bit unpleasant with work lately and there isn't any additional reasons not to be happy. I think I go through ups and downs with work and I'm simply in a down. I must be in an unchallenged period, which isn't always good especially if I let my guard down. So I better not let my guard down, I find performing poorly has worst consequences for me then the company.

Either or, this comic is half-truth. I did once have a customer, and I might add importance to the fact that I do not serve customers usually, get into contact with me to complain for a good hour and a half. He swore a lot and told me off, but hung up pretty happy in the end. Nice guy, I did do a check up on his account a few months later. It turns out he eventually called back and demanded the person who served him add as a note on his account that we were (and still are) clowns who should go back to school. I'm glad to say, he still brings in the green. He's a bit of a sadomasochist.

I've got the donation button ready if ever you feel like it. It's there, sitting alone, waiting to be clicked on. Any donations are appreciated!

A bit of truth

2009-05-05T20:08:00.004-04:00

Whenever our systems are completely down at work, we're told to assist to the best of our abilities. This sounds just about the same as what happens in the comic. That or we sound like we're just a bunch of morons. We lose face, but we do it in a professional way which equals to us saying we're mentally challenged with a British accent to sound sophisticated.

I'm working on a store right now. So far I've got a mug and a T-shirt, I'm not going to launch it until I've got a satisfying assortement of...things. I'm also planning to get a few more pictures of the awesome sign/light I was offered as a gift from an equally awesome Canadian supplier.

I've got a a few ideas in store for the future, but I'll take my time executing them to be sure they're done right.

Another world

2009-05-04T10:34:00.002-04:00

RPGs tend to ask a leap of faith from it's players. I remember trying extensively Neocron while it was still in it's beta stages. It was a great concept, but the first version of it demanded hours of gruelling and difficult sewer raids that didn't allow a natural progression of your character. Once that was tweaked it was exploration time and no matter how a game tends to logically explain the multitude of tasks required of the player it simply wouldn't work in real life, much to my younger self's dismay.

I've been contemplating where to take the comic. I'm not sure if I'm into giving it an overhaul on it's own domain name. The investment wouldn't be of much use I'm afraid. Especially when I look at my top web-comic ranking (holy fuck is it really that high?) the decision doesn't seem wise. It would only fulfill a young man's dream. Interesting point to make concerning the dot com bubble, twelve year old owned dot Com's and still do. What a great time we live in! I'll say it again, digital freedoms are awesome.

Meanwhile, into the capitalist den, some changes are taking place which aren't totally logical. To even some evaluations out, they are randomly assigning monitors to random representatives each month. This only seems arrogant because the idea behind all the changes is that at the end of the year, this fail safe system would even out the amount of complaints per evaluator. How odd, I thought that if you flipped a coin, you had a 50/50 chance of getting heads. If you were to flip that coin 50 times, and get 50 heads and your ultimate goal was to flip it 100 times, the next flip of the coin would have the same odds as the previous flip 50/50 and would not guarantee a tails. The coin doesn't care for the previous flip, it doesn't have a strict schedule to abide by. So essentially, they're back at square one, but the process to get there definately looked different. But then again, what do I know?