Category: General

Okay, moving on with whatever friends I have left….

Today I had a voiceover job for a car commercial. It is paying more than twice the amount of money I made during the entirety of a certain year that I was doing nothing but freelance art (based on net income, not gross). This, to me, is completely nuts and morally unsound, but at least this will afford me the luxury of dropping the 9-5 habit which in turn will allow me to get back on track with my comic book projects. Tomorrow I am looking at co-renting a studio at Kingsway and Broadway.

I can now hang around sick people.

The weird thing is, though I was making more money per hour than I ever have before – dramatically so — I was way more nervous dropping in on Best unannounced at her work (a first) than I was about the acting job.

Yesterday Deanna and I trucked out to Coquitlame to visit the wonderful world of Ikea. I feel so dirty! I already had some Ikea furniture but they were all Stewie’s hand-me-downs. Until about a month ago I had never been to an Ikea since I was a child. When Kolja and I drove down to Seattle to pitch our comic to Wizards of the Coast, we had breakfast at the Ikea nearby. Yesterday we picked up a new bed for me and also wall-mounted shelves, which we spent last night putting together (partially, anyway). So now I can no longer say that I’ve never shopped at Ikea. I keep washing but the dirt doesn’t come off.

I am now currently unpacking and setting up my room. At the moment I don’t have a bed (there will be a trip to Ikea on Monday, unless something else {craigslisty} comes up), and I can’t fit both my entertainment section (i.e. TV) and my drawing table in the room with everything else. Problems problems problems that only money can solve.

Kodos seems to be weathering this move much better than the last one. Last time when he arrived at the house he found a dark corner and stayed there for hours and hours, this time he was less whiny and more apt to wander about and sniff things. I am keeping him sequestered in my room (which unfortunately means it already smells like cat litter in here) for an indeterminate transition period – I think at the moment each of the two cats here don’t know the other exists. Stephane helped me take Kodos to the vet which was a traumatizing affair – more so the car ride in a tiny cat carrier than getting poked in the back with a couple of needles.

I am enjoying the options in the new ‘hood; walking distance of Topanga’s Mexican restaurant (good nachos), an Indian restaurant, and the Naam for those times at 3am when nothing but fries with miso gravy and a fruity crumble with ice cream will do. There’s also a ton of places five short blocks up to Broadway. And I’m dangerously close to a Dairy Queen. Gord help me.

I will say that it’s weird being in a place with carpet after 12 years without.

I found out today that I got a very prominent voice acting gig that will be happening some time in the first two weeks of March. So if you have a cold stay away from me.

A woman from Dawson’s Creek came into the showroom today and remarked on how there’s no WalMart here. I had to hold my venom in check as she described how the WalMart is the social nexus for the town. She didn’t use the words ‘social nexus,’ mind you.

One good thing about working on my own is that I can listen to the CBC whenever I want, which dovetails nicely into my Get-Your-Head-Out-Of-Your-Ass Initiative. Now I know about the carbon tax and have been keeping apprised on their rather dull coverage of property crimes in Vancouver, which is apparently three times as bad as NY, if statistics are to be trusted (they are not). I was tempted to write in to add:

“One step you can take to avoid property crime is to be very careful about buying used. Never buy from pawn shops and if you buy used from a stranger (like on Craigslist) ask where the item came from and why it’s being sold.”

But after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out how to get it to them through their unnavigable website I gave up. There was a lot of talk about keeping alert and owning a dog and whatnot, and precious little about mitigating the cause of theft, which in my opinion is best done through education, social programs and legalizing drugs. And also plenty of beatings all round.

Have you heard about the “devil frog?” I quote:

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the “devil frog” that lived 65 million to 70 million years ago…larger than any frog living today and may be the biggest frog ever to have existed. Its name, Beelzebufo ampinga, came from Beelzebub, the Greek for devil, and bufo — Latin for toad. Ampinga means “shield,” named for an armor-like part of its anatomy….Beelzebufo was 16 inches long and weighed an estimated 10 pounds.

In the “Gee, No Shit” department, “Major world commercial fish stocks could collapse within decades as global warming compounds damage from pollution and overfishing, U.N. officials said Friday.” SO HURRY UP AND EAT THOSE FISH WHILE YOU CAN!!

For those of you who don’t play D&D on Wednesday nights, enjoy going downtown, and are Guitar Hero rock gods, it may interest you to know about Rock Hero night at the Lamplighter Pub.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8842777193&ref=nf

This week the day job boss is on leave which means I am in charge of the shop for six days. This means no sleeping in five days a week as per normal. I know, I know – poor Toren has to work like the rest of us schmucks, cry me a tsunami. Well it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to. I don’t think you appreciate just how much I abhor dealing with the public. Overall it’s been pretty decent for these past couple days and I don’t mind shooting the feces with good-humoured customers generally (especially when Thor shows up to get hockey shirts made up), but when the customer is unhappy, that makes Toren unhappy. Toren smash. Right after Toren dig spiked pit trap just inside front door.

Furthermore I can’t just stroll out of the shop to get a snack, though bossman anticipated that by laying out six 2L bottles of Coke Zero for me before he left. What a character!

People who have been reading this blog for a while know that there was a time when I would post interesting news tidbits gleaned from Harper’s Weekly and often I would add some editorializing. I haven’t done that for a while, for several reasons.

Firstly, I take a tiny bit of pride in my blog content being more or less unique – if you want to read the news there are better places to go.

Secondly, those posts become dated very fast.

Thirdly, I get frustrated with news. I get frustrated with how the media perceives what they report on and I get frustrated on how they report on it and I get frustrated with the confines set upon news reporting in general – i.e. how much space and attention is given to one subject verses another (you know, Paris Hilton vs the dangers of alternative medicine, for example), how news is sponsored and how that censors the facts — all that boring old shit that everyone knows. That frustration builds until I get news burnout, which is very similar to how I get people burnout, but it lasts a lot longer.

The specifics of news stories will change from day to day but the underlying message is always the same: people are ignorant, intolerant, dangerous pricks. I learned that years ago, and then later I came to accept it. I don’t let it rule my personal philosophy and behaviour, obviously. I mean I’m a bit antisocial but I don’t feel like I’ve retreated from the world like a hermit because X number of innocent people were murdered today. And I don’t dress up in a bat costume and mete out street justice because among other things, I’m a pacifist and a coward. But I do what I can to not be one of those people.

Still, my reaction lately has simply been to ignore current events and distract myself with more pleasant things (or more rarely, work) which I’m actually somewhat embarrassed about, because I don’t think that’s a responsible (or healthy) outlook for a man of my age and my era, either. Best’s comparatively intense involvement in human rights issues and activism in general has shone a rather glaring light on my previously unspoken shame.* For the time being at least (pending burnout) I pledge to the Nine Gods of Slack that I will muster up some kind of wan crack at keeping up.

In summation, I am going to make a little more effort to stay on top of “the news” (besides what new cartoons are coming out) so I invite any and all to talk to me about current events so that I can showcase for all to see my vast ignorance of social, political, historical and geographical issues.

Additionally/as a result, I may bring back some of the news editorializing, but will try to keep it upbeat and cool. For example, did you know that Tom Jones insured his chest hair for $7 mil, or that they’re giving backpacks to flying lemurs, or that the BBC discovered that a female worm-like amphibian allows her young to peel off and eat her skin?

*Don’t think for a moment she has pressured me in any way into doing anything. On the contrary, I have found her ethos and work inspiring, just by being around her and hearing about her day to day a-doin’s. This falls exactly in line with my own philosophy of activism – leading by example.

Tonight on SciFi if you have access. I hope I don’t get cut!

All of this stuff happened this weekend and all of it with Deanna (who I refer to as “Best”):

Confucius Chinese Restaurant delivers bubble tea! And also Chinese Food.
I draw pirates while watching March of the Penguins finally (anyone want the DVD now that I’m done with it?) and while Best plays World of Warcrack.
Gaming at The Comicshop – a D&D zombie survival adventure. We ran out of holy water so we had the peasants pee in the aspersorium and the priest bless it. “I can’t go when there are zombies in the room!” was heard to be said. Superfun group.
Homemade pasta while watching WarGames on TCM. I wish I could remember all of the General’s down-home colloquialisms.
Reading Mouse Guard
Catching the tail end of the Chinese New Year’s Parade and visiting Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. Unfortunately the bubble tea place was out of tapioca pearls which precluded any purchase from me.
Watching more episodes of Metalocalypse, which I think is the one and only DVD that Best owns, so that says a world of awesomeness right there. Not that I’m trying to convince you how awesome Best is – she made the moves on me so case closed. [addendum: she owns the Lord of the Rings DVDs too]
Homemade rib dinner at Dillon & Yvette’s while watching the train wreck that is The Grammy Awards (I think I’m good for another generation on that front). Only Stevie Wonder had to memorize his lines, although Cindy Lauper looked like she made a good try.

Here you can see a dragon reaching up to eat lettuce dangled in front of a business. We learned later that if the dragon eats your boutique’s lettuce it is supposed to bring prosperity for the new year. Oh those crazy Chinese! (You will have to make up your own sound as my camera has no mic.)

Random fun facts about De:

Her dog’s name is Lunch and she’s super well behaved (the dog, not Deanna. De needs some obedience classes pronto).
We met at a gaming convention at the Marpole Curling Club several years ago and she is super nerdy in the best possible sense of the word.
She is deep into the dark sub-levels of activism and is the education manager for an organization that handles litigation regarding women’s discrimination.
She was a hardcore Christian 15 years ago but now she’s decidedly not.
She can field strip and reassemble an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in 49 seconds. Actually I made up that last one, but it might be true!