You know what I don’t have that I think would be cool to have?  A can of green Play-Doh.  Proper green, not half a can of yellow and blue mixed.

I’m not sure how long I’ve had the cans of Play-Doh I keep on my desk.  They are new enough that the kid isn’t on the can.  Actually I have 2 older cans that still have the Playschool logo and the Tonka copyright, but the contents have…  evolved into something other than Play-Doh.  I’m not sure, but I think at least one of them might be a biohazard at this point.

One of them was my sister’s at some point.  I can tell because the lid has pen scribbles all over it.  She went through a ballpoint phase where many of her things gained alterations, shall we say?  I’m not sure how I inherited it.  Most likely she discarded it and I claimed it.

I honestly can’t remember how I ended up with the newer cans.  They must have been in some kind of Halloween set because the colors are orange. black, blue, and yellow.  I almost have to have bought them on a whim.  I did a lot of that sort of thing at one point.

Anyway, I like to squish the stuff aimlessly when I’m not focused on anything.  I guess it’s stress relief.  Actually molding stuff out of it is no good.  Detail is too hard to gain, or maintain.

Okay, first of all, here is the best picture I could get of that spider.  It was a windy day, but I think it’s the very same one.

I think if you click on the image you see the full size version of it.  I made it small so that people who get queasy  about spiders  won’t have to see it very good. (well?)  It had a net strung up between two plants.

Anyway, I had a dream where a girl was accusing me of plagiarizing an episode of Futurama in my comic.  Except it was an episode that doesn’t exist, and the comic in question didn’t have anything to do with Futurama in any way.  I actually saw the episode in my dream, but I don’t remember enough of it to tell you what it was about.  I only know it was a Zoidberg episode.

There’s no magical force that makes luck.  Or at least one that science can detect.  It’s just the intersection of decisions you make,the decisions others make, and the motion of the universe.  I mention it because I lucked in to a good advertising deal this weekend.  I can’t claim any special knowledge, or feelings that led to me making the choice.  I just happened to make it and it worked out particularly well.

I’ve been reading Shortpacked! since just before I started this comic.  So…  about 3 years?  4?  Anyway, since I actually know the work I know that a certain portion of its readers are going to like my work.  I made a targeted ad specifically to run on that site.  It will run nowhere else.  (At least no place I know of yet…)  If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically an edited portion of Thomas & Carol talking about Beast Wars.  David Willis blogs about Transformer stuff constantly, and nerds, in general, are drawn to cute redheads.  Nerds seem to fall in love with Jolene once they get here, but Carol has been the best honey for my traps by far.

I set the ad pricing so that when the cost dropped over the weekend I could draw in bored stragglers.  The bored are my safest bet because my comic requires you to read from the start AND remember things about the story.  By chance Willis posted bonus pages all weekend, and my cheaper add ran while other advertisers snoozed.  You can’t plan that kind of thing.  It’s just serendipity.  The kind of thing that Fes is trying to explain in the luck portion of his formula for success in comics on the web.

To say that there’s no such thing as luck is foolish.  Luck exists.  It’s just not a tangible thing like electricity, that can be measured.   You can only perceive luck after the fact, but you can be lucky, and good choices, and educated guesses, can bring more luck to you.

It’s entertaining to read some of the longer comments concerning siblings that desire things that aren’t theirs. A nerve has been struck. XD Sometimes those old rivalries never fade or change. As far as me goes, I’m an alright brother to be stuck with. No horde of bastard children, no alcohol or drug use, generally I keeps myself to myself. I mean, one could get stuck with someone worse. Or one could even marry and end up tethered by their spouse to someone worse, just as a completely random suggestion that has nothing to do with anyone I know. At all. The flip side of that is, of course, that you could marry and get an awesome new brother like me.

The title pretty much says it all. XD Those of you who read the comments will likely have seen this already. Everybody else, enjoy.

Ah, i totally got a link you can go to now. His (her?) Deviantart.

This page is a rarity in that I was editing it right up until I posted it. Usually I let the chips fall where they may, but once in a while I can’t bring myself to overlook certain things. On the whole I’m happier with the page now, but also resigned to accept my shortcomings.

In other news I saw the biggest spider today. It was one of those orb weavers, but it must be a male, or a kind I’m not familiar with because it was longer through the body than the usual ones. It was about 2 and a half inches long, or like, what, 6.5 centimeters? It’s legs were super pointy and skinny. They looked like a fantasy painting. It was as if each leg ended with a long shiny fingernail. I disturbed the web while moving a hose so it was clinging to the remains delicately. I felt kind of bad after because it’s posture was one of fear, rather than aggression, and had I seen it I wouldn’t have broken things on purpose.

The spiders are super big this year. I thought they were big last year, but man… We’re talking the first 30 minutes of Arachnophobia here. Plus they love building above doors. Massive structures dangling right above your unsuspecting head. DX

Sorry for not replying directly to the bulk of your soda ring comments. Most of them didn’t require my input, so I left them alone. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in this habit though.

So, I’ve been getting Urusei Yatsura movies with my Netflix thingy. I can only get 2 a month, but I’ve seen 3 so far. With the exception of #2 I find that the movies are written like fanfiction. Not particularly good fanfiction either. It’s like late 90s Internet fanfiction before you could find a few nuggets of gold hidden in the mines. I actually own Beautiful Dreamer (#2) and I assumed that all the others would be of similar quality. I assumed incorrectly. The others so far haven’t been unwatchable, but I found myself not even bothering to read the subtitles half the time because I wasn’t invested in what was going on.

I usually watch anime subtitled, especially old stuff, because the dubs from back then are fucking terrible. Terrible to a point where you have to wonder how a person allowed them to happen. If the Japanese acting sucks you can remain blissfully unaware while still getting the emotional gist of things. That’s easily the best thing about DVDs. You can choose your poison.

Dubs are better than they used to be on average, but it’s a crap shoot. The stuff that used to end up on Cartoon Network tended to be pretty good. In fact, I prefer the English Big O to the Japanese. I didn’t watch a lot of it but Fullmetal Alchemist was well done. Samurai Champloo, Paranoia Agent, Cowboy Bebop, and FLCL were fairly well done. I liked Cowboy Bebop better subtitled, but I never saw the others on disc so my data is incomplete.

The Disney rereleases of the Ghibli movies are well dubbed too. Which is important since their audience is mostly kids who aren’t going to be strong readers. (The Nausicaa one is leagues better than the old Warriors Of The Wind abortion.) I prefer them all in their native tongue, although I have a special place in my heart for the original dub of Castle Of Cagliostro.

I really don’t like the English cast for Lucky Star. Even though they sort of fit there’s just something grating about all of them. I think there’s some overlap between Lucky Star and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but I’m not sure. The English cast annoys me less, but I prefer the subtitles.

Of course most of this is subjective, and all of it is unimportant, but it’s something to talk about at least. X3

It says as much in the description on DA, but this was drawn to mark the passing of Jack Horkheimer, who hosted Star Gazer on PBS for as long as I can remember.

This Gurren Lagann inspired one is by Hunter.

These are by Indigo

I got this from someone identifying themselves as Ann.

This one is by a friend of mine.

You know those plastic rings that soda comes in sometimes?  When I was a kid they started showing pictures of animals with them stuck on their necks, or arms, or whatever, to get people to stop throwing them away intact.  Now, I don’t particularly like seagulls, but I don’t want to cause one to suffer.  So, even all these years later I still cut apart every link ring I come across.  Does anyone else do that?  Has anyone else ever done that?  Was I the only person who took that whole thing to heart?  I’ve never seen anyone else do it, but there are a lot of things I’ve never actually seen that still take place.

I’m sitting here with a pair of nail clippers cutting one up because I don’t have anything else handy.  Except the pair of scissors I just noticed not in their  proper place.  Better take care of that…  Those would have been handy a minute ago.  At any rate I got it done.  I won’t have to worry about being personally responsible for the death of any otters for another day.  At least when it comes to soda rings.  Any other things I do that might result in otter fatalities I am blissfully unaware of.