I can’t believe it is Tuesday night already – tomorrow is already the middle of the week! I’ve taken off next Monday so I can recover from the SuperBowl. It doesn’t start ’till like 6:30 or some such and with the extra long half time. . .I’ll prolly get home ’bout midnight or so. I’ll be exhausted. I won’t be drunk as I haven’t taken a drink since Oct 1st, 2005, so I won’t have to deal with the hang over. . .but still. Midnight is pretty late for me, and morning comes too damn early.

Watching all the SuperBowl hype – yes, even me with no teevee, I still get to watch the SuperBowl events going on: from Patriots.com having live video streaming on their website of the Patriots press conferences on Sunday night when they got in to the local teevee channel’s websites showing clips of their reporters at the media day events to NFL Network’s online videos of behind the scenes stuff.

What made me laugh is Fitzy’s supahfan webcasts. This week he is doing a couple minute spot on a local channel. This segment has me laughing my arse off. Ohh, I knocked on wood several times when I saw the title of that stupid book, what the hell were they trying to jinx with that? And I get so irrtated thinking about our lost to the Colts in last year’s AFC championship game – grrrr!

So old Fitzy is part parody of the Patriot’s fan, and part loving tribute to us. . .whatever it is, he makes me laugh something fierce. His NSFW videos that he posts on his blog via youtube are great, though some of his “pg-13″ ESPN and newsite clips are pretty decent. Just less cussing and belching.

I’ve got a Totally Mossome shirt I plan on wearing to work on Friday (casual Friday doncha know). I’ll see if I can get a picture of it posted to my flickr feed.

So this entire week was one “event” after another. Starting out with the process issues at the start of the week, with some part issues at the middle and ending the week with a mixture of both: only one part that was giving me issues due to a process issue. . .

GAH!

I felt like I was beating my head repeatedly against the wall all week, and it never let up. So of course, on my day off, what do I do to help ease my unsettle mind? Clean.

Yes, cleaning is the tums for my brainmeats. I cleaned out my closet, rearranged how stuff was crammed in there to make room for more crap from the living room. Vacuumed the living room, and thanks to a friend, whose steam cleaner I borrowed, it got a good steam cleaning as well. I rearrange some of my Cerebus collection: putting the 300 individual issues, the 81 biweekly issues, and all those other Cerebus single issue comic appearances over my by wall of Cerebus.

In my cleaning I found my camera cable – while I love my little Sony DSC-W50 camera, the only thing wrong with it is the cable that is needed to connect to the computer. It is some sort of Sony interface so a standard (or even mini) USB cable won’t work. Other then that it is pretty close to perfect. But I digress.

I also managed to do a couple hours worth of work on the Cerebus Wiki, adding the “charnav” template to about 10 issues in Mothers & Daughters.  Doesn’t sound like much, but those issues of Flight and Women are jammed packed with characters, so sitting there with a phonebook in my lap, the excel conversion sheet open (so I know what page in the phonebook is what issue, a very handy dandy spreadsheet, you can find it here on the CFG site) and about three different Firefox tabs open with the CerebusWiki on each one so I could look at which articles a particular character’s article was linked to.  I’d like to get the charnav template added to all the M&D issues, but it will take a while.

A headlight in my car went out the other day, so I changed those out this morning as well. I got a two pack and replaced them both: as I didn’t want to have to replace the other one in a month or two (as it was older then one that went out). Now at work I’m the process engineer for equipment that uses lights that are 8 kilowatts, so replacing these little bulbs is something that I figured I could do right? I mean, I’m an engineer: how hard can it be to replace the headlights in my car? I’ve done it before with my Toyota, so lets give it a go with the Mustang.

And it wasn’t that hard at all. Hats off to the Ford engineers who designed such a headlight: pull two clips out which releases the body of the headlight from the frame of the hood. Unplug the bulb, twist off a plastic retainer and remove the bulb. Simple. The headlight assembly pulled back from the hood about 6″ to give me plenty of room to take out the old bulb and put the new one in. My one complain? There are three little notches on the light bulb, and on the inside of the lightbulb housing there are three prongs, so you have to fit the notches in the prongs:

I don’t think the bulb was directional, but the back of the bulb is directional: only one way to plug that wire in. I guess Ford rather make it easier for us to put the bulb in rather then worrying about twisting the cord to plug it in.  Meh.

But it was super easy to get the old bulb out and put the new one in. The only way it’d be easier? If someone else did it for me. . .

And now? After my week of crap, my weekend of getting everything in order and being able to check stuff off the “to do” list: it is snowing. A beautiful small flaked white coming down. Once again, I feel like I’m in a Gerhard painting. . .

That and the Patriots are headed down to Arizona this morning – Foxboro is only 20 minutes away from me by car, I could head over to watch them go, but just watching the snow coming down and knowing they are headed down there, is enough.

So on Monday I walk in to work to find an email sent on Saturday from the Manufacturing Manager that says they did some routine maintenance on one of the machines I’m the engineering support for and then they went to start it, they couldn’t. It kept giving them an error message they couldn’t fix. So my Monday was working on that with another engineer. We got it to start, but weren’t too sure of what the real root cause was, or if we had actually done anything to fix it.

Then on Tuesday when they wanted to use it, they had issues again. Oh, it was started, but they couldn’t get one of the functions to operate. We got it going again, and in the process found the root cause to both our first issue and the second issue. And fixed both. Pretty nice. Even if I was banging my head against the wall on Monday morning.

 ***

I had a strange dream last night, or actually this morning: in between getting up at 4am to use the bathroom and my 6am wake up time:

My mom was driving a minivan and I was in the middle set of seats. No one else was in the van. It was daylight out and we were going along this two lane road. Then this corvette with this pissed off looking guy starts chasing us. I don’t feel scared, just irritated at him for giving us shit. Mom doesn’t really try any manouvers to lose him or anything. . .I remember looking behind us and watching him go into the break down lane to get around a slow car to get right behind us. He was yelling and waving his fist at us. But he would just follow us, nothing more. My irritation at him grew, I just wanted Mom to “lose him”, but either she couldn’t or wouldn’t. 

Then I woke up to the alarm.  Like I said, strange.

So the SPACE website lists Dave Sim’s glamourpuss as one of the premiere comics at SPACE this year. All the SPACE website states is that “Dave will be auctioning off VIP Access copies of Glamourpuss at SPACE!” but silly me, I just assumed that he will be selling copies of glamourpuss as well. . .perhaps that is an assumption I ought not be making.

Why you ask?

Because Dave at one point in his Blog & Mail stated, talking about non-ComicsPRO retailers: “If they want to have input on the way Secret Project #2 is marketed they should consider joining ComicsPRO.” Dave even pledges support of the ComicsPRO organization with this (way back in Sept 2007):

Second, it seems to me that what ComicsPRO needs is some non-retailer support . . .I’ve been looking into the incentive and variant cover end of things for Secret Project #1 and Secret Project #2. So, let me just commit right here and say that if I do them, it will be in complete conformity with the ComicsPRO position paper.

Which he did, as stated on the back of the preview edition of glamourpuss #1 “In comformity with ComicsPRO Position Paper #001, The Fashion Ediition and The Comics Edition of glamourpuss No. 1 will be offered as separate line items.” So when news of their next position paper came out, I was left scratching my head. From the ComicsPRO.org blog dated Jan 17th:

Convention Sales
Conventions, even regional ones, will have national sales impacts. East Coast-based customers frequently travel to West Coast conventions (and vice-versa). It should not be assumed that sales impacts are limited to the region where the event is hosted.
Request for Action
ComicsPRO requests that publishers refrain from selling direct-to-consumers in any manner until the same product is received and available for sale by all members involved in Direct Market retailing.

There is talk about it on Comic Book Galaxy and a blog or two already, and I wonder what will become of the glamourpuss premiere.

First off, thanks to Larry H for the call out after he won the Comics Cover Challenge. He dropped the CFG site’s name and Steven Grant mentioned it in his “Master of the Obvious” column for this week.

Last Friday night I got a package from Dave Sim in the mail. A whole lot of glamourpuss. One of each variant as a matter of fact. He also sent a request to document them and post it to his “Blog and Mail” blog, which now serves as the glamourpuss bulletins, so all would know what variants were out there. So I wrote up something, Tundis aptly named it “Don’t Be Fooled By Cheap Knock-Offs” and it was posted. Weeee!

And to answer the unanswered question: Yes, I read it. No, I’m not going to spill the beans. I’ll just say it is well worth your hard earned $3.

***

It looks as if my trip to Mexico is back on.  Our customer’s customer had pushed back the date, which was originally the middle of December, to the February / March time frame. Which turned out is the middle of next month. We shall see if it is still on. I’ve got my passport ready: should be a fun trip. Even if it is only a business trip, and if it is only for a couple of days, I still get to fly on a plane (I love take offs and banking the best) and see new sights.

And one of my other customer’s is having issues with one of their lines, so they’ve asked us to pick up the slack for them. So a couple of large purchase orders later, I topped 200 part numbers on active order. w00t!  I had been hovering about 150 – 170 parts on active order, and these just pushed me over the top. Keeping up with them is pretty much a full time job.

***

I’m pretty excited for the Patriots making it back to the AFC Championship. I hope we don’t have a repeat of last year’s lost to the Colts. While the Chargers may have some key players injured, they still were good enough to beat the #2 Colts – so they scare me a little. I’m hoping the Patriots can step up their play and make the plays they need to make to win this one.

I’m also glad that it is a day game, starting at 3pm on Sunday will be a nice change of pace from having to stay up ’till 11pm to see the end of the game.

So I wake up to a couple inches on the ground. The plow hadn’t gone by yet, so the landscape was a washed with a soft white snow. It looked like there was only a couple inches at the most on the cars and trees. So I checked the weather map and school closings online.

More snow was coming our way, and all the schools had closed for the day. Umm.

I looked out my window again. All the cars were still there covered by their white blankets. Usually by now a few early risers have left for work. But not today. So I call the main number at work hoping for a “we’re closed message.”

No such luck. So I put on my coat, hat and mittens and headed out. The plows were doing their work, and the parking lot wasn’t that bad at all. I didn’t even really need my shovel to get the car out. Just brushed all the snow off the car and I was off.

The ride into work was gorgeous:

The roads as you can see had some slush and snow on them, but nothing too slippery. Driving the rear wheel drive Mustang in inclement weather is always fun, but today the tail only swung out on me once: so not too bad.

And besides, it was worth it to go a few miles under the speed limit to see the sights:

Work even started off like the day wanted to give us all a “snow day”: it was about 8:30 am, I as in the middle of adding some instructions to a part router and the lights start to flicker: off then back on and then off then back on and then off. For good.

Well,  for about 5 minutes tops. We were there for the duration.  By the time five o’clock rolled around, the roads were clear and the snow had stopped. Thankfully.

Ohhh, yes! The Patriots pulled off another win and will be hosting the AFC Championship! And it turns out that the Chargers beat the Colts! I was really hoping the Patriots would be playing the Colts, after the pounding they gave us in last year’s AFC championship game. . .but it was not to be. Instead we see the team who we had to beat to get there last year. So they have a bit of “beef” against the Patriots. . .but we shall see.

It was amazing to watch Brady go 24 for 26 with 3 (!) touchdown passes. . .and for Maroney to have a career night rushing, while we held the vaunted Jags two fisted running game to 66 total yards when they have been averaging 149 yards. . .Still the Patriots defense will have to step it up for the Chargers, but I’m pretty excited about next Sunday’s game. Should be a good one.

And only 48 days to SPACE! w00t!

So I’ve been keeping an eye on the glamourpuss talk on the internets, and figured I’d give you some of the best links out there so far (all links open in a new window/tab):

• glamourpuss official site: You can’t start a links list without the official site. Has sample artwork and you get to see a bit of Dave’s sense of humor coming through in the site text. Some may complain about the bright pink background, but doesn’t that just go along with the name of the comic?
• ICv2 News Interview With Dave: ICv2 news takes Dave Sim up on his promise for a 5 question interview and asks such questions as “Who is the target audience for Glamourpuss?” and “When will the first book collection appear?” with interesting results.
• Some reactions to the glamourpuss annoucement:
  • Douglas Wolk at The Savage Critic(s): Douglas says that what he sees of the comic so far make sense with regards to Dave’s recent talk of photorealism, and that he’ll be picking the comic up.
  • Andrew Hickey at Don’t Worry About Countdown: An essay entitled “Dave Sim – The Song, Not The Singer” on why he is looking forward to glamourpuss and how he thinks Dave Sim is the greatest comics creator ever, but he doesn’t care for how Sim portrays himself in his prose writing.
  • Successless Comics Blog: Dylan thinks we shouldn’t dismiss Dave’s new book just because of the opinions of its author, but he is still doubtful on picking it up.
  • Comic Related: The Related Recap: Chuck Moore is bit puzzled at what to expect, and will be picking up a copy before he judges it.
• And of course the internet forums have been a buzz with talk:
  • RPGnet Forums: 17 pages of talk that start off about glamourpuss and digress into a discussion of Dave’s opinions. Known Dave Sim blogger, Andrew Rilstone, has some interesting posts.
  • The Comics Journal Message Board: About 6 pages of discussion that start with glamourpuss and weave their way into talk of pre-banning Hitler, Dave’s views on spanking women, and being possessed by YHWH.
  • COMICON.com: Only three pages on this one.
  • Metafilter: Some talk on the glamourpuss site. The usual comments that range from Cerebus is da bomb to Dave is batshitcrazy. Mostly talk about Dave’s thoughts and Cerebus.

And for even more glamourpuss links, check out my Del.icio.us links page for glamourpuss: http://del.icio.us/meowwcat/glamourpuss

Goodness my. The past couple of days have made me think it is March. From temperatures in the upper fifties, to thunderstorms, to motorcycles out on the roads it just seems like the start of spring already.

Yet bits of the past month’s snowstorms still hang around the in the parking lot of the mall. A not so pretty reminder that yes, it is winter and it could snow again sometime soon. But yet it was warm enough out for me to leave the window open during two nights this week.

***

I had another odd dream this past week:

I was on a mountain top science station, standing outside on the edge of the Earth. I would look up to the station on my right with the edge of the world on my left, and I would see two guys trying to raise a radio signal tower.  My point of view would randomly change from me looking up at them attempting to raise the metal pieces that resembled the Eiffel tower and seeing them crash down around them to looking down on them from above, and trying to help pull the pieces of the tower up. I would turn to my left and see the edge of the world: but all I could see was clouds below and a pale blue sky above me. I had this feeling that we were it, we were the last of the world, and there was nothing down there but clouds. We managed to get the radio tower up, and before we could broadcast, I woke up.

The one good thing about getting up before sunrise? Being able to watch the sun come up over the horizon. ‘Specially on a morning like this: a few clouds in the sky to give it that reddish glow, some fog still crawling along the ground in the low spots and bright blue skies:

I wish I had time to stop and taken pictures of the fog rolling over the cranberry bog and the swamps. It gives the morning landscape that surreal dreamscape quality. The above meadow on the right where the fog is lying in wait for the sun is a cornfield, long since given over to the muck for the winter, but during the summer time it is shoulder height cornfield. There is a small roadside shed where the farmer sells corn and various other veggies. It used to be just a table of plywood thrown on top of a couple sawhorses, but a summer or two ago they went all out and built the shed. During the fall they have pumpkins all over the place as well. On the left, unseen, is a horse stable.

Makes me feel like I’m back in Colorado, sans mountain range.

This next picture was taken even earlier in this morning:

Just over those trees is a large swamp / pond. The fog was rolling over that this morning, with the tree stumps just poking out from the mist, it made it look a bit spooky with the redish orange glow behind it.

Today it was in the mid 60s, at least it felt like it. Even right now it is 50° F out. And you know what warm weather means right?

Yes, a few brave souls were out on their motorcycles. I saw three on the way home tonight. Even though it was dark (no big deal, I actually love riding at night) and the roads were slick and sandy, they still ventured out. I don’t know how far they were going, but they were out and about. It would’ve been a nice night for a ride, other then the sand and wet roads. I rather not take my chances sliding around. . .

But still, I felt my heart strings pull at the sight of motorcycles, I longingly glanced at  them, wanting to feel the cool wind on my face, see the rush of the pavement under my shoes, and hear the road sing to me again. . .

But no, I don’t need to feel the sand and pavement make my face a mark it won’t soon forget. . .