I Have Been Listening to This Album A Lot. Again.

Dude, this album is good. I've been listening to it a lot the last few days after giving it a break because I listened to it a lot when I got it for my birthday. We Are Scientists' With Love & Squalor. It is sooooo teh rawk. I listen to it a lot. Represent.

Also, that has got to be the greatest album cover in recent memory. If you can find another, let me know but you won't be able to because there is none better. None, I say. Represent some more. WORD!

Man, I Am Totally Freaking Out!

I'm getting a little paranoid about graduation. Just want to make sure that everything's ready for me to be walking down that aisle in my pretty white dress... I mean, in my cap and gown. Whoops.

So far I've got two classes they're saying I have to take: an online course (which I was supposed to have waived) and an Advanced Design course - that doesn't exist. Please, someone just hold me and tell me it's all going to be okay.

Actually, I know it'll all be okay, but it's still freaking me out. Because I'm crazy.

The Break Is Gone. Let Us All Sigh.

So, my beautiful Thanksgiving Break is gone. I'm a little sad to see him go. Sniff, sniff. We had so much fun together, Thanksgiving Break & me. I remember how he'd run out in front of moving cars whenever we were playing "Fetch." Or how he'd put his head on my knee when he needed his head rubbed. He was a good friend, old Thanksgiving Break. Sniff, sniff.

And now he's gone. But let us not think of him as laying dead in a shoebox in the ground here in the back yard. Let us instead think of him as he would like to be thought of: full of life and energy and vitality and essence and whatever; ready to find whatever fun may lie in his path. Let us think of his life, not his death. Let us instead look forward to the next break in a month or so - an even better break. A break full of food, fun... and PRESENTS! Let us not think of how boring real life can be, with the work and whatnot, or how long a month really is. I mean, 30 days. How many hours is that? 24 times 30...carry the one... Hey! What are you doing? I said let us not think of that, and what are you doing? You're thinking of that. Man, have some respect for the dead.

So, anyway, goodbye little friend. Vayo con Fritos or whatever. Rest in Peace. You're in a better place now.

Now, with that out of the way, let's eat some leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving To Everyone (Except the Turkeys)

Hope everybody out there has a great Thanksgiving Day. Eat the heck out of those turkeys. Show them who's boss. I would challenge everyone reading this to find one thing they're thankful for and sometime during the day, declare your thanks for that thing. I'll start: I'm thankful for elbows. Your turn. Gobble, gobble!

Hooray For Madman

Oh how I've missed Madman. It's been my favorite comic from the first moment I laid eyes on a borrowed copy of the first black & white collection, Madman: The Oddity Odyssey, and I've followed it ever since. Mike Allred's been taking some time off from the character, first to do the Atomics, a Snap City spin-off book that marginally featured Frank Einstein, a.k.a. Madman, then took more time off to do the amazingly brilliant X-Force/X-Statix with Pete Milligan for Marvel, and then to self-publish a comic-book version of the Book Of Mormon (seriously). With the exception of the Madman Super-Groovy King-Size Special, it's been roughly forever since the Madman's been serialized. And that's a shame.

Thankfully, that's all going to change. Starting in February, Madman's coming back in a monthly series from Image. And you know I will be there.

There's a interview up at Newsarama here with Mike, who has always seemed like a super cool guy & I hope to meet him someday. Seriously, if somebody stumbles on this site who works with Mike, let him know to contact me if he needs a designer. Seriously.

Anyway, this made me happy.

Oh My Sweet Pumpkin Pie

This is the best/worst website I've ever stumbled upon. Go. Just go now and see for yourself. It will melt your brains.

In a good way.

Oh Man, I Forgot To Post a Castlerocker Suggestion!

So, the penultimate Castlerocker Challenge post is up and it's a doozy. Axl Rose. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Slash's car phone. It's all here. What else do you need?

It's been a great week. Ryan, thanks for being such a good sport. I knew you'd come through. You're a champ.

Anyway, lemme wipe the tears away from my eyes and the snot from my nose and get down to brass tacks here. The final suggestion is: "determination."

Peace.

I Feel It's Only Fair To Warn You

That Doc Savage is one bad mammajamma.

He rules supreme.

Okay seriously, I'm going to bed.

So I Did It

Drunk on my newfound bandwidth, I joined Last.FM, which is, so far, pretty cool. As you can see from my sidebar thingy, it tracks (or, as they call it, "scrobbles) what you listen to and makes recommendation based on people with similar musical tastes. If you click on it, it should bring you to my latest-played track/artists list. If anybody out there decides to join, let me know and we'll be Last.FM buddies. Anyway, I'm off to bed. Peace in the Middle East and that's no joke, my dawgz.

I Ate A Cinnamon Roll That Was Half-Cooked

Not the best thing I've ever eaten. I thought at first that maybe it was just overly saturated with icing, but no, it was severely, half-way, undercooked. And I can't stop thinking about it no matter how hard I try not to.

Yuck.

Castle? Rocked.

Newset Castlerocker post's up. It's like the Discovery Channel, only the Castlerocker's not full of lies.

Anyway, today's suggestion is: "illusion."

I Have Always Been, And Will Continue To Be, Obsessed With This Logo

Look at that thing. Isn't it beautiful?

"Say, Chap, What Is This Castle Made Out Of?" "Well, Solid Rock."

Castlerocker's latest is up here. It's beautiful, Kerouac-ian recollection wrapped in a blanket of Hemmingway economy. Man, Ryan, have I told you that I love to read your writing? If not... well, I really, really do.

Today's suggestion is: "bird."

Until then.

Man, I Had No Clue That I Hated Gallagher So Much

I was talking to my buddy Allen tonight after my History of Design & Illustration class and somehow we got talking about 80's comedian Gallagher. You know. This guy:

Anyway, so all of the sudden I remembered how much this guy pissed me off. See, as a kid I'd always see commercials for him appearing at some casino and all they'd show was him with his gigantic mallet smashing the living be-jeepers out of fruit. "This," my adolescent mind thought, "is the definition of super-rad."

So, I imagined this great show where he just smashed stuff for like an hour, starting off small with some grapes or something and working himself up to some huge finale, where he'd smash like, I dunno, an elephant or something. Yeah, an elephant. An elephant would be awesome. "I would pay money to see that," I would think, "if I wasn't saving my money for a Nintendo because my mom & dad refuse to buy us one, I would walk to the Sahara right now, in the 100-plus-degree heat and see me some of that. Oops, Alf is on. Gotta run." Aaaah, to be 26 again.

So fast-forward a few years later, after I've meticulously planned out this (perhaps literally) mind-blowing show for Gallagher where he smashes everything in sight because, well, he does have a mallet and, well, wouldn't you?, and I'm flipping around and "Hey! There's a Gallagher special on! Cool! Let's see some smashing."

And what do I get? A lot of really lame jokes. Stuff that's just not funny. What the heck?! This guy's a lame comedian? I thought it was some weird and awesome performance art or something. Not only is he a lousy comedian but a prop comedian? That's like two levels down from radio dee-jay on the unfuny-o-meter. And radio dee-jays are like two levels down from cancer. And pestilence. Not funny. And he makes you sit through this entire lame-o show before he smashes... a watermelon or two. A watermelon?! What the?! Frea! King! Hippie! What are you thinking? Enough with the jokes about your ex-wife or taxes or airplane food or whatever! Smash some stuff! This is what they want! THIS IS WHAT IS FUNNY YOU BALDING MULLET-HEADED HIPPIE PINHEAD! NO JOKEY! SMASHY! HULK IS STRONGEST THERE IS!

Also, your pants are stupid.

Anyway, so I have a real seething hatred for Gallagher which I had totally forgotten about until tonight.

The End.

We Got High-Speed Internet & My eMusic Dowloads Refreshed! Yay!

So, we've been trying to get on our downstairs neighbor's wireless network for a few days or so with no luck. So imagine our excitement when suddenly our Airport status bars are all filled up and we can connect to the internet! Whee! The fast internet is so cool! I've been telling myself that the novelty has worn off and I won't spend all my waking moments staring at it, but I know that's a lie. A dirty, stinking lie. [sigh]

In other news, my eMusic downloads refreshed so I filled up. Stat. I got the new self-titled from the Lemonheads, the Pernice Brothers' Live A Little (excluding the foul-titled closer) as well as Papas Fritas' self-titled debut. I had one track left so I odwnloaded a track from Bob Pollard's Not In My Airforce, which I think I'll be chipping away at for a while (there's 25 tracks on the album).

Also, finished the third volume of Scott Pilgrim and I must say that it is some fine funnybooking. Seriously, if it were any more fun, it would be illegal.

We also finished the first disc of season one of Arrested Development which is hilarious, although I find myself talking in Gob's voice from time to time.

Anyway, so I did nothing all day and don't feel the slightest bit regretful about it, to be honest. Is that bad?

Also, "Huzzah!" for the internet. Thou art so rad.

That is all.

Today Is the Laziest Day I Have Ever Had Ever

It's 2:42 in the afternoon and I haven't showered. I laid in bed most of the morning re-reading volumes 1 & 2 of Scott Pilgrim. Watched a couple episodes of season 1 of Arrested Development. I feel like a total slacker and I kind of like it.

Okay. Now I'm sick of it. I'm getting in the shower.

Operation: Castlerock Is A Go! Again!

The Castlerocker's latest post, based on yesterday's word, "Unsanitary" can be found here. Hope everybody gets feeling better over there and Ryan, if this little challenge needs to wait until everybody's well, by all means let it wait, my good man. I will keep posting suggestions and you can get to them when you can, because you've gotta take care of your family. Family is the most important meal of the day. Or something like that.

Today's suggestion is: "flamingo."

"What Should Ryan (aka Castlerocker) Blog About Week?" Day 3!

Today's suggestion is: "ketchup."

Your Castle Has Officially Been Rocked

So, the Castlerocker took up the challenge. Woot woot. It is a glorious day. You can read the fruits of this here. It is, as always a treat.

Because the Big Red Robot's All About Education & Whatnot

Today class, I will enlighten your brains with a post about M.O.D.O.K. I was thinking about doing a comics post on Doctor Doom or the Thing, two of my favorite comic characters, like, ever, but they'll have to wait. Everyone waits for M.O.D.O.K.

"But Dylan, I have no clue what you're talking about. It's like you're just typing letters and making no sense here. What is your deal?" Easy there, my young pupil. All will be explained. Maybe.

See, in my book arts class today, I made a M.O.D.O.K. reference and nobody got it. I mean, what the heck are they teaching kids in school these days? This, my friends, is what is wrong with America. Freaking Liberal media and treehuggers and whatnot.

See, M.O.D.O.K. is one of the best comic creations like, ever. First off, he looks like this:

From an aesthetic point of view, M.O.D.O.K. is a gigantic pruny baby head with super Kirbytech that helps him fly and shoot lasers and whatnot.

Yeah, pretty amazing.

But wait... it gets amazinger. "What," you may ask, "does M.O.D.O.K. stand for?" Well, I'm glad you asked becaus ethat is the kicker. M.O.D.O.K. stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, which would look great on a business card. Or a personalized license plate. Or a t-shirt. Or on the front of an apron... beats the heck out of "Kiss the Cook."

Acronym names rule. In fact, they rule so much I shall give myself one. M.O.D.O.K., you have inspired me. From here on out, I shal be known as H.O.T.B.O.D.(&.E.T.C.): Human Organism Totally Built to Only Design (& Eating The Cookies).

That's catchy.

Oh, and there's some origin for him that is crazy, like the terrorist organizatiuon A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics, I believe, the Marvel U is thick with acronyms) they wanted to give him a bigger brain but he revolted and ended up taking over AIM. Or something. Whatever.

All you really need to know is the following:
Big baby head.
Crazy Kirbytech.
Designed Only For Killing.

That should dazzle anyone at an upcoming holiday party. In fact, you should tell your boss all about M.O.D.O.K. He (or she) will be so impressed that I personally guarantee* you will get a raise, a personal secretary and an office the size of Delaware. So says H.O.T.B.O.D.(&.E.T.C.)!

So, there's M.O.D.O.K. in a nutshell. Sure there's much much more to be discussed about him and his awesomeness, but that's why they invented Wikipedia and I am too lazy to cut & paste it here because I want to go eat cookies. I will, however, leave you with a cute little mini-M.O.D.O.K. Don't let his size fool you! He is Designed Only for Killing!

*This guarantee is totally fake and I am such a dirty liar. That's what you get for trusting people with acronym names.

"What Should Ryan (aka Castlerocker) Blog About Week?" Day 2!

Today's suggestion is: "Unsanitary."

Is It Just Me...

Or does this look like the Best. Movie. Ever?

It's just me, isn't it?

"What Should Ryan (aka Castlerocker) Blog About Week?" Kicks Off!

Help my friend! One of the things that makes my day a little brighter is when my homie, Ryan, aka the Castelrocker (clicky click the linky link at the right), aka the Honorable Reverend Funkalot, aka the Break-Dancing Dynamo, aka the Avenging Fist of the Bravo Truck, aka the person they based Scott Baio's character in Charles In Charge on (or was it the Willie Ames character... I forget), aka Haiku Man himself, posts on his blog, the ever-lovin' Castlerocker. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the poor fella just doesn't post enough... at least not enough for me. And I am all that matters in my little world.

So, in light of this sad, deplorable fact, (the sad fact being that Ryan doesn't post on his blog enough, not my being the center of my own world) I am hereby instituting a week of posts that give my good friend and excellent person, the Ry-Diggity himself, fodder for posting. Something vague, almost like a keyword used to awaken a hypnotized person to get them to do some terrible thing, like litter or listen to Good Charlotte. Something a creative, thinking man like the Castlerocker can latch onto and run with. I guess I'm recommending something like the writing journal you had to keep in your English class taught by a teacher who was once married to your ancient Drivers Ed teacher who had a glass eye and couldn't hear and told long, nonsensical stories from his glory days, before he lost his sight or hearing or had to start using Grecian formula to darken his hair. It doesn't have to be spectacular, just something to keep the posts coming.

So, sorry to put you in the hot seat like this, but, whaddaya say? Are you up for a little bit of this? Are you ready to rock the castle? If so, here's your first challenge: "Blue."

And they're off...

Quote Of the Day

"Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck."

Lemony Snicket
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Book the Tenth: The Slippery Slope

Clowny Clown Clown

The latest Comic Frenzy poster. It's gloriously insane and I love it. I was a little unsure of it as I was working on it, as my original intention for finishing it just didn't sound all that great once I got started on it, but I really love the way it turned out. It's like the circus. Only crazier. Which is a fair assessment for a Comic Frenzy show. Since there's no script, no net, anything can happen: feats of daring, falls, spills, maulings - the usual. So, I wanted to capture that feeling of excitement and fun and insanity that is a Comic Frenzy show. And here it is.

Cool Stuff I'm Interested In But Also Sort Of Intimidated By Because I'm Not As Tech-Savvy As I'd Like To Believe, or The Title's Longer Than the Post

Flickr - Online photo hosting.

Last.fm - Uses (basically) spyware to compile a list of iTunes activity and makes recommendations based on other people with similar tastes.

GoLive - Adobe's website building software. For some reason, the web is just sort of hard for me to grasp and a totally new piece of software is like, scary and stuff.

Putting a cool top banner image on my blog. I still can't figure out how to do this. Maybe I need to buy a Blogging For Dummies book or something. Or check one out from the library. Yeah, library it is. Hooray for poorness!

Not Even Sleep Is An Escape

So I was up working on this presentation for my Identity Design class last night. I think it turned out pretty good and I'm looking forward to killing with it today. There's only one problem: all last night I dreamed I was designing stuff. And not even stuff that made sense. Just... designing. All. Night. Long. So, that's weird.

UPDATED! Also, R.E.M. figured prominently in my dream. Don't ask me how, I just remembered it randomly this morning when my iPod managed to queue up two albums (I'm now shuffling by album) in a row by Georgia's favorite sons.

That is all. Carry on.

It's Like They Went Back In Time and Read 10-Year Me's Mind

Dude. It's like a no-brainer. Like peanut butter and chocolate. Or peanut butter and jelly. Or peanut butter and beef jerky. Awesome.

Recent Acquisitions, aka Super Duper Dance Party Exclamation Mark Go!

Have been getting a lot of music lately. And all legally, too (Shon). I've already talked about Beck's the Information. It's been rocking my socks off. Also rocking me lately are the following albums:

Robert Pollard's Normal Happiness, which is good, but sadly, not great. At least not yet. There are some really good songs on here - "Supernatural Car Lover," comes to mind immediately - but it never quite makes it, as a whole, into the "great" slot for me.

Ben Kweller's Ben Kweller, which is, again, good but not as great as his first two albums. Can I just state publicly that I really can't stand his slow songs. They all sound the same. Like exactly the same. The rockers here sound a bit too polished, but it's a decent album.

Centro-Matic's Fort Recovery is one of those albums that, on paper, I should love, but instead just don't take hold of too tightly at first listen. Very Red House Painters-y/Goldrush-y, which can be either a good or bad thing, depending on my mood.

Sparklehorse returns with Dreamt For Light Years In the Belly Of A Mountain. I got this for Can-can for her birthday. I'm quite "in like" with this album right now. It had been so long since Mark Linkous' last album I hadn't realized how much I missed the guy.

Of Montreal's Satanic Panic In the Attic is a keeper. Not as tight or as consistent as the Sunlandic Twins - which is a five star album all the way - but there are some real good songs on this.

The Futureheads' News & Tributes is, yes, a lot more "grown up," but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Still, I fell in love with the manic energy of their debut - another five star album - and the couple of more introspective songs don't thrill me as much as their more bouncy ones do.

I also got Spoon's first album and EP, Telephono/Soft Effects, which is, yeah, a recording made by a Pixies tribute band, essentially. I also got their Loveways EP which is amazing. Recorded between A Series Of Sneaks and Girls Can Tell (both of whic are gold... I love me some Spoon) but released after the latter, it's really good.

Hmmm, I can't think of anything else, so that'll do for now.

What am I listening to now? Party shuffle, baby! Why? Cuz we're having a party! Not really. We just finished watching disc five of Gilmore Girls season six and Candace is agonizing over a scrapbook page. What's playing on Party Shuffle? The Flaming Lips' "It Overtakes Me," followed by Whiskeytown's "Don't Be Sad." See? PARTY!

Okay, goodnight.

So I Listed 26 Items On eBay Last Night

I went through my comics collection and purged. Mainly stuff I know I can get in trades sometime later if I decide that I simply must read it again. i was up until very very late doing this but am still not quite tired. I have a busy Sunday tomorrow and am a bit miffed at that. Oh well.

Something Cool

One of my favorite instructors, Scott Franson, (okay, so he's my favorite) has a children's picture book coming out next spring. It's called UnBrella. It's really cool and clever and cute and an amazing achievement. It's also available for pre-order at Amazon. Check it out.

And Now A Word From... YOUR BOYFRIEND!

Meet Steve. Steve's divorced. Twice. His hobbies include putting puzzles together, eating pork rinds and yelling at the television. He's doing just fine. Would you like to do something this weekend? Steve's got two tickets to see Eddie Money. Say yes.

Meet the Cool Kids

Here's those invites for the AIGA typography lecture. For those of you not hip to typography, the names of the cool kids are all names of typefaces. I loves 'em. Let me know what you think.

Hello, November

Man, it is already freezing here in Rexburg. What the heck?

We had a fun Halloween, went to see a couple people and ended up at home watching THEM!, a B-movie about gigantic nuclear mutated ants that I've been wanting to watch since I read about it in Premiere magazine years ago. It was pretty good, actually, considering what it was. I made a couple of books while we watched it and Candace, as is her habit lately, fell asleep around 10:00 and went to bed while I finished watching it. Poor girl, she's so exhausted lately. I know it isn't easy for her, this pregnancy thing, but I'm glad she's willing to do it for our family. She's such a great wife and friend and mother. I know it's the way things are, but I still wish it were easier on her getting them here, though.

I really can't believe it's November and I'll be graduating in about seven weeks. It's exciting and frightening. And tiring. Really tiring. I'm trying desperately to keep motivated, as I had effectively checked out of school earlier this semester, but I'm getting better at staying on top of things.

I'm going to have to start getting stuff done to get a job: resume', reprinting portfolio, posting online portfolio, e-mailing potential employers. I've been dragging my feet on all of this, but just need to start. I don't know why I'm so reticent to start; I know it will be fun once I get started. It's just a matter of getting started, I guess.

Anyway, it's November. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go put on 13 coats and hope my boogers don't flash-freeze to my nose-hairs when I go outside today. Cheers!