Will Return...

Sorry about the lack of comics for the past 2 weeks. We're heading out of town tomorrow night for a few days so ya'll gotta wait another week.

Kim & Pieter came by last night to watch the Chelsea/ Liverpool UEFA Champions League game. Unlike the Chelsea/ Arsenal EPL game last week, this draw was pretty aggrivating. We'll see how they match up in the second leg!

Owwiee. My tummy hurts. I gotta get back to work.

Arcade Fire Gets Flashed

I'm not sure if this is official but please check it out!

The House (and the list of things to do)

Carlos and I have been living in our new house since September 18th of last year and about 85% of the remodel work that needed to be put into the house is complete. The other 15% is as follows and should take place in sequential order:

1. The Garage needs an overhaul-- Right now it's a dark soggy, smelly green mess and the door only opens halfway. There's no way we could store any of the junk and extra boxes from the house in there what with the state that it's in, let alone a car.

2. Wainscot-- With the extra boxes and junk out of the way and in the garage, the wainscot will be cut and attached to the walls in the living room, back hallway, Carlos' office and our bedroom. We'd also need to bring the painters back to stain it once it's up. This would get the truckload of wood out of our dining room and give us an opportunity to start to...

3. Finish the dining room-- The walls need prepped for paint. Then we'd be able to rearrange the 3 tall bookshelves where they need to go and unpack the rest of the many boxes of books. The baseboard also needs replaced to seal the Pergo floor down.

4. Finish the "dvd & media closet"-- When all of the tools are no longer necessary at close hand, we can finally put them both in the basement and in the garage (and out of the messy closet they're in now). We'll need to build floor to ceiling shelves on each wall of the closet to accomidate our many dvd's, video games, tapes, cd's etc.

5. Finish the bedroom closet-- The walls of the closet need floor to ceiling wainscot and a top shelf with lighting. Then our clothes racks can be replaced. A bottom shelf will stretch all around the bottom for our shoes, etc.

Whew.

Plucking Twangers

Dear Santa, please let this be a real kids' TV show!

And kids, don't forget to scroll down on the page to follow the transcript of the video clip!

Dead

Carlos found this glorious little clip somewhere in internetland.

Speaking of dead, that's what Manchester United is in the water. What the hell's going on lads? Pieter and I watched the (gasp) Chelsea / Arsenal game last night too. Now I totally understand the machine that Chelsea is (Arsenal too for that matter). Jose Mourinho was a bit of comic relief throughout the insanely tense 0-0 draw. He totally looked like a disheveled drunken businessman type, shouting at his team and reacting to their lack of goals. It was great.


image from Fox Soccer

Sweet Jeebus

Wow, these people really need to get a life.

a tiny window of time...

Hello people. I'm getting ready to go back east for my sister Caitlin's official graduation from pharmacy school. It's been well over a year since I've been to the homeland so this should be nice-- despite the fact that my parents moved yet again into their 2nd house since the one I grew up in. Home? What's that? Carlos is making the trek with me and boy is he in for a redneckin' culture shock. Woo.

By the way, try to go see Kung Fu Hustle when it comes out. It's suprisingly innovative and thoroughly entertaining- and I don't even like kung fu movies all that much.

New Comic

Please visit the Weekly section of the site for a new comic called "Problem Solver".

Little Bunny Foo Foo

I will be bringing the beloved bunny characters back in a big way really soon. "The High and Low #3" will not only feature the bunnies but also the snide parasites that eat away their insides- guts and souls. I think this one will be aptly titled, "Poor Kid, You're Probably Wrong".

Oh no!

From Pitchforkmedia.com:

The Delgados Break Up!

David Nadelle reports:
Even the most cynical music fan can excuse the deflated sighs heard in Indiedom the past few days, as news spread that beloved Glasgow quartet the Delgados have decided to call it a day after releasing five albums of magnificently skewed pop. The news was dispatched to fans on the band's official site, as well as on the site of the Delgados-run label Chemikal Underground:

"The Delgados, influential figures in Glasgow's independent music scene for over 10 years, have announced that they are to amicably disband. The reason has been put down to the departure of their bass player Stewart Henderson who informed the band in the New Year that he did not wish to make another album. The Delgados have always been known as uniquely collaborative songwriters and as such, it was decided that the band could not continue without all of its original members."

The departing bassist himself sums up his thoughts about his years with the band and also deals with the underlying forces behind his decision to leave in succinct style:

"Physically, emotionally and financially I found it increasingly difficult to pour so much of my energy and time into something that never quite seemed to get the attention or respect I felt it deserved. I would be a traitor to myself as well as to every Delgado fan if I continued to clock on and clock out, dragging myself into a recording studio, giving half hearted, insincere interviews and generally continuing with the band when my heart wasn't in it."

There has always been a concealed darker element to the group's lyrics and an understated beauty to its music, whether from their early period, bashing out Pixies/Sonic Youth-influenced singles and first album, Domestiques, to releasing last year's somewhat sweeter-sounding Universal Audio. The band's lyrical and musical strengths collided wonderfully in 2000, with the Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev)-produced album The Great Eastern, which garnered them a round of glowing reviews and a prestigious Mercury Prize nomination in the UK.

Just as important as the music itself, the band was inspirational within the heart of the Glasgow music community, creating Chemikal Underground, a label that would take chances and introduce to the world the likes of Bis, Mogwai, and Arab Strap. The label also issued the Fukd I.D. EP series, which included the first release by Interpol. Releases by newbies Mother & the Addicts and old stand-bys Arab Strap, as well as a solo album by the 'Strap's Malcolm Middleton are expected shortly from the label.

However, all is not lost, as the band's songwriting and singing core of Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward will continue with proposed solo projects, drummer Paul Savage will continue to handle production duties at the band's Chem19 studio, and the Chemikal Undergound imprint will continue to release vital music. As the band's bulletin contends: "Don't be too upset everyone...get a massive carry out, turn the stereo up and play your albums at full volume." Wise words indeed.

They're out to get me.

Or at least out to make sure I don't blog at work. It's a little strange to me that this site does not come up on the laptop in my office today. I've found me another computer to carry out my bidding on.

We drove down the 5 amid heavy traffic last Saturday and visited the happiest place on earth. My sister, Caitlin had never been to Disneyland and she was super excited to be alive that day. I was super excited that my Silver Pass worked and that it wasn't one of those "blockout dates" that Disney haphazardly throws into the calendar year. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day to be there. Hell, the weather this whole weekend made me reconsider southern California in general.

Carlos purchased one of the coolest things you can buy at any of those theme parks too-- a 2 feet high ceramic Mr. Toad on a pedastal. It's especially valuable to us now due to the fact that they permanently closed Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and this thing looks like it was yanked right out of the entry way to the ride. Let's just say it looks fantastic in our living room. Thank you Disney discount!

New Comic

Please visit the Weekly section for a new comic, "Expression Chart".

South Park was another home run tonight- pun most definately intended. The team had a goddamn game in Pueblo, Colorado. Yes Pueblo, Colorado. [you can insert Mexican jokes here] And who could forget the songs from Rocky (sped up, of course)??

Cut Your Hair

Here's another Pavement song-title-as-post-title. Yeah, yeah. I went a little more mainstream with this one. Haha. Speaking of cutting things...

My sister Caitlin is coming to town tomorrow for the weekend. She's finally settled in to her new place in Tempe, AZ and even enjoyed a sweet little game of "nearly chop your finger off and visit the emergency room in a town you don't know on an empty stomach". Yeah, a guacamole making accident the other day left her with 4 stitches and a pint or so less blood. I call her "dicey" now.

Ok, I lied...

...sort of. I started the new comic last night. Sleep overcame any further progress on it. I'll take another swing at it tonight. The people must have their Kusai!!

Our beloved Federlines, Britney & Kevin are to have their own reality show on UPN. No stopping this one- it's already well into production. Look out Ashlee & Jessica Simpson... Ah, whatever.

I'm still pissed FOX nixed my favorite show, Arrested Development. Has anyone been watching the remainder of this season? It's beyond brilliant. Buster lost his hand for cryin' out loud!!! How do you write that stuff?

By The Way...

Tens of thousands of people visit Rome every year to experience the many awe inspiring and historically significant sights the ancient city has to offer. For me, all of those were cool and I snapped me the same tired pictures a million other people did but I found 2 elements there that had me way more intrigued: the cars and the dogs.

Yes people. Call me an ingrate to humanity but I think I had much more fun hunting down the nearest Volkswagen showroom where I saw (and sat in) the new GTI than I did being shiestered (is that a word?) by every Roman citizen at every goddamn tourist site for being not only a tourist but an American tourist. (*shiver*)

I also should have bought a separate disposable camera to snap a quick photo of every cool looking dog I saw. See, my digital camera was giving me nothing but a headache the whole time, what with it's draining 4 AA batteries per day. The dogs were the most interesting mixes of mutts I've ever seen! Most appeared to be stunted in growth and resembled mature puppies. Some could have even been purebreds special to Italy (or Europe) for all I knew. Ugh. That would have made a great photo series. Speaking of which... It's been so long since I've done any serious photography. So many things I want to get back into doing, so little money.

Blah Comics Blah Blah

New comic coming later tonight. Stay tuned. Lots of crappy feelings brewing in my brain so this should make for a nice new batch of future comics. The pope would be proud.

I've also been thinking about putting together "The High and Low #3" mini comic book. I think it's about time I pollute the world (or at least LA) once more with pointless, non-sequitur vignettes of cute charaters hating on each other. Hell, I might even bring back the bunnies everyone seems to be so fond of. Awesome!

Kids Choice Awards

Hola people. Damn, if this weekend didn't fly. It was the only real time I've had since I landed back in LA to gather my bearings and slither back into Pacific time... with the Daylight Savings time switch to boot. I love this though. It's light when I wake up AND when I roll up to the house after work. I love not feeling like I've completely written off my soul as well as an entire day to the mouse... Hey, I said feeling like I haven't done that. Lord knows that actually happened a long time ago. Yikes.

Speaking of "yikes", we had the pleasure of attending the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards this past Saturday at some UCLA stadium thingy. Despite all of the obligitory children running around, I had a blast. Carlos was secretly upset though because none of the "hot" stars that he is into were there. I, on the other hand, had mini heart attacks all night to the beat of: Jimmy Fallon, Hayden Christensen, Justin Timberlake AND (gasp) Jonny Depp. Wow, I sound like a real girl right now. Haha, also in attendance and sitting right behind us was none other than "Mr. Henry", James Caan. Directly behind him was Cheech Marin. Here's a crappy phone photo Mr. Henry:



I took a few more photos but the technology on my phone cam is downright archaic. I won't hurt your eyes with the blurry colors.

Sin City at the Dome...

We went to the midnight *snore* screening of *zzzzzzz* Sing, I mean Sin City. Let's just put it this way- it certainly looked cool. Despite its sprawling cast, it failed to deliver the "13-year old's wet dream" message effectively. Carlos summed it up nicely by saying that it all felt like an awkward Max Fischer stage play. I gotta give it up for Mickey Rourke though. He makes a great Marv. My suggestion? Go read the comic book. And then maybe put the movie in yer Netflix queue when it comes out on video.