Friday, February 27, 2009

Brian Duffy vs. the Des Moines Register

As someone who once hoped to be a professional editorial cartoonist, I feel that it is my duty to bring up this blog entry about the Des Moines Register refusing to give its former editorial cartoonist his edtoons back. We edtoonists put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into our edtoons, so I certainly feel Duffy's pain.

FREE THE EDTOONS!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fat Domino...

Heck, there's nothing I can say about this. Just enjoy, man!


Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis
Uploaded by Hanvak

The economic downturn affects the plant kingdom

I knew things were not good for the economy, but dang - I got a sign yesterday on just how bad it is. Yesterday afternoon at work, a lot of the plants and other greenery were taken out and replaced with newer and fewer plants.

Know what that says? It says that not even plants are safe from these hard times. Damn, it's a bad sign when plants get fired. No one is safe anymore. /:-(

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A-Fraud Day with the Fort Worth Cats

A local semi-pro baseball team, the Fort Worth Cats, will be hosting its annual Cats Fest as a way to promote the start of the selling of tickets to its summer games. Among the promotions is "A-Fraud Redemption Day" in which former fans of the former Texas Rangers baseball player, Alex Rodriguez (aka "A-Rod" in case you didn't already know that) can redeem their A-Rod merchandise for free tickets to one of their games. Here's the blurb about it:

Cats Fest to feature A-Fraud Redemption Day The Cats will host Cats Fest on March 14 from 10 a.m. -1 p.m. at LaGrave Field in Fort Worth. The event marks the beginning of individual ticket sales for the upcoming season.

Also as part of the event, the Cats will be holding A-Fraud Redemption Day, allowing all fans who were a victim of A-Fraud between 2001-2003 to bring in A-Rod related merchandise or collectibles and receive four general admission tickets, good for a 2009 Cats’ game at LaGrave Field.

Fans can run the bases, play catch on the field, take tours of the ballpark and enjoy complimentary hot dogs and sodas while gearing up for the 2009 season. There will also be bounce houses and other activities for kids. Fans can get autographs from current and former Cats’ players as well as Dodger and legendary first base coach Wayne Terwilliger.

The Cats 2009 season begins on May 14 with a 7:05 p.m. game at LaGrave Field. Spring training begins on May 1.

As for the issue of A-Rod himself, I 'm not quite sure what to say about the dude. How he can not know that he was taking steroids? Having something foreign injected into your butt should be a clue! If he's an athlete and he doesn't have a cold, then was else could this substance being injected into his butt be? Apparently, whatever it was, it didn't boost his intelligence. Nope, I don't buy his alibi - I believe that he knew what he was doing, and I think he should suffer the consequences for his actions.

I'm going to switch to a sport that I know doesn't have cheating scandals: Boxing. :-P

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

25 Random Things

I got this idea from a Facebook phenomenon that's been going on, so here's my take. I may make each one of the entries below into its own blog post.

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25 Random Things About Me

1.) If I could go to only one place in Europe, it would be Vatican City. It’s a Catholic thing.

2.) I am the son of a former teenage single mother who lived in what would be called poverty, and yet I managed to not only get my Bachelor’s, but also my Master’s. So don’t believe those stories that children born in the circumstances that I was are doomed to failure.

3.) As a boy, I wanted to be an astronaut or a scientist.

4.) I’ve only had one pet in my whole life, and he died as a pup from distemper. I never owned a pet after that. His name was Scout, and he was (I think) a toy Manchester terrier.

5.) Back in high school, I had the biggest crush on a cheerleader named Susan. I still see her once in a while, and she is still good looking.

6.) I recently came across the notebook I used in high school. Man, I had crappy handwriting. I could have been a doctor!

7.) I’m not Irish, and yet I find women with red hair and green eyes very attractive.

8.) And while we are on the topic of the physical attractiveness of women, it’s not big boobs or long legs that will get my attention as it is beautiful eyes.

9.) For some reason, I think taking up archery would be cool.

10.) I honestly don’t know why the entire human population isn’t pro-life. What’s wrong with believing that all unborn babies have a right to live?

11.) The Dark Knight is currently my favorite recent movie.

12.) I believe that a laptop computer with wireless Internet access is the closest thing to Star Trek technology that we have right now.

13.) I was once mere inches away from shaking hands with Charles Barkley. The dude in charge of the event he was at turned him away at the last second.

14.) Injuries suffered while playing pick-up games of football and basketball over the years: twisted ankles, sprained fingers and thumbs, stubbed toes, bruised ribs, countless cuts, scratches and bruises all over, hit in the nose, eyes, and mouth as well as numerous times of pulling my hamstrings. In a freak occurrence while trying to tackle my cousin, I also once got a heelprint on my forehead. And yet, I recall those times fondly. Must be from too many shots to the head.

15.) I still laugh at the Three Stooges (maybe this is related to #14?). My ringtone is the classic “Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard…”

16.) If I had a super power, I’d like Green Lantern’s ring.

17.) For most of my childhood and well into my young adulthood, I believed that I was going to be a cartoonist for a living, but once I discovered how much I like writing, I decided that I’d much rather do that for a living. Funny how life can throw curves at you like that.

18.) Because of some of the views I hold, liberals think I’m conservative, and conservatives think I’m liberal. All this time, I’m just being me. Funny how the opinion of a person is so easily judged by their stands on certain political issues.

19.) In my whole life, there are two women who come immediately to mind that I would have been willing to marry had they not been seeing someone else at the time. My timing stinks.

20.) I still get goosebumps whenever I see one of my columns published and my name in the byline.

21.) I have never skied, nor have I ever been on a boat bigger than the ones in San Antonio’s Riverwalk. Why I felt the need to tell you that? Because I’m trying to get to #25!

22.) There were two editors whom I felt were the best when I worked for my college newspaper. One was conservative and the other was liberal, but both shared the commonality that they both respected the views of others even if they disagreed with it. The worst one I had canned a lot of columns because she disagreed with their statements. It is people like her that the newspaper business is tanking, and it will be people like those two editors that will save the newspaper business.

23.) I believe that it will take a change of heart to save our country from ourselves rather than change that is brought about from yet another government program. President Obama has the right idea, but the wrong implementation of that idea.

24.) Ultimately, I am a hopeful and optimistic person. I try to temper it with reality so that I am not delusional, but I also try not to be so grounded that I can’t dream. For this reason, I pray the Serenity Prayer every day: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage the change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

25.) I will leave this last one open-ended, because I know that later I will think of more than just one.