UA:Comic Blog

Blog #67

Tuesday 21 May 2013

I have a couple of major webcomic announcements to make, and I had intended to make them today (technically, yesterday, as it's just past midnight local time). Instead, Ill recount a memory

My sophomore year of college (the second of two-and-a-half I would spend at Xavier University in Ohio), my dad built a loft so that my bed fit underneath a bar-height desk. He had planned it out so well that only a single two-foot piece of wood was left as scrap. At the end of that year, I decided to have some of my best friends sign that piece of wood. Pat O'loughlin wrote the following poem:

I think I thought a minor thought
Twas one I made, not one I bought
I could repeat it, if I sought
But on the whole, I'd rather not.

Twenty-seven years later, I believe that piece of wood is still in my possession, buried somewhere in a box in the garage. But even if it is gone, the memory remains.

Filed under: life

Blog #56

Monday 15 August 2011

Watched an episode of Warehouse 13 on the DVR tonight. (I love the DVR. I don't even have to know what day of the week it is anymore.) Best line of the night:
        The League of Evil British Writers strikes again.

Heading off to Renovation** with my brother in the morning. If you're going to be there, look for me under the badge name Mek.

Renovation - the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Reno, NV this year, 17-21 August.

Filed under: life

Blog #55

Thursday 07 July 2011

I managed to get through most of the day without remembering it was 7-7. But then I had to type the date on a report I had just finished running, and it all came crashing back down on me. She's been dead for 14 years and yet certain dates still bring it all flooding back, and it feels like someone has ripped out my still-beating heart and stomped out it while simultaneously sucking all the air our of the room.

People tell me it's supposed to get easier with time. If today were an ordinary Thursday, maybe I'd even agree with them. But on certain days, like today, it hurts as deeply and as much and as intensely as the day I got the worst phone call of my life.

How do you get over something that will never be over?

Filed under: life

Blog #48

Sunday 01 May 2011

United States Navy Seals: When you care enough to send the very best.

Filed under: life

Blog #47

Sunday 01 May 2011

We got you, you son of a bitch.

Filed under: life

Blog #22

Monday 15 November 2010

Back when I lived in Texas, my friend Cesar Stastny was in a band named "Band Schmand". (Reader of Paonia Pawns with good memories will remember that Benny listening to Band Schmand's "Black Pizza" is what tips off Jimmy that Benny had cracked the lock-out code on the Trans-Universal Positioner.)

A couple of times when I was hanging out with the band after practice, the conversation turned to band names. I wrote a few of my favorites down with the idea of using them in some future story. Only the first one below has done so so far. That piece of paper drifted from one pile to another, surviving moves from Texas to Ohio, to New York, to Virginia, back to Ohio (three different addresses), and finally to California. This past weekend, while cleaning the garage, I came across it and shoved it in my pocket.

Below is the list (and, yes, alcohol may have been a factor in some of the name's creation):

Montrose and the Aldo Romper Vixens
Dodecahumdrum
Taboo Tool
The Finito Bradley Extremes
Boogie Household
The Strikeleather Five (a quartet)
and
Smog Pump

I don't know if any of these has ever been an actual band name (in most cases they are weird enough to bet on no) and at least one of them (Taboo Tool) I'm hesitant to Google. I just enjoy the list and wanted to pass it on.

Filed under: life

Blog #2

Monday 11 October 2010

Today is my sister's birthday; her 43rd if I'm doing the math right. Not that this is relevant to UA:WC. She and I have spoken maybe once in the past 5 years, and even then had long since said everything to each other that needed saying.

However, as I am trying to make this blog a daily ritual, I will probably use any excuse to start any given day's entry.

Although my sister never had an impact on the stories I intend to tell in this comic, there are other who did have, often profound, effects on it. Among them are Mike Burke (my best friend for many many years), Mark Klusman (my favorite teacher in high scool, who I never actually had a class with), and Razak Dahmane (my favorite professor in college, whose classes I went out of my way to take). Each will feature in at least one entry here along the way.

Filed under: life