Thursday, March 26, 2009

AIG Exec: I quit!

I'm not sure how to think of this whole AIG bail-out followed by the bonuses fiasco, especially after this Letter to the Editor.

I am, however, having less and less respect for politicians in general and the Democrats in particular (including President Obama) because of the sheer cluelessness and stupidity that we have witnessed and been subjected to so far this year. It's been so bad that I don't know where to start in regards to writing about it. If the GOP was so stupid in what they have done in the past 8 years, then why didn't the Democrats learn a damned thing from the mistakes they made?

I think it's like what my uncle once told me: Democrat or Republican, they're all politicians who are wealthy, and they are all equally separated from how things really are for the rest of us. That is, their social and political culture - especially in D.C. - is so insular that they really can't relate to us anymore. Our fault is that we keep electing these people back into office who should have been voted out a long time ago.

I'll think about this some more so I can write more coherently instead of out the frustration that I'm feeling right now over how our "leaders" have been conducting themselves in recent weeks and months.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Comics in the modern age

Check this out. It's reading comics in the new computer age. It's pretty cool. :-)


about DIGITAL COMICS by ~Balak01 on deviantART

Note: Be sure to click on the arrows to the side of the frame to advance to the next image. It's a Flash program.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

This is Post # 600

Milestone post: # 600.

Wow.

More to come, folks. Catch ya later.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Rush vs. Obama?

Rush Limbaugh, the controversial radio commentator, has publicly announced that he wants to debate President Barack Obama.

I say he should do it.

It was a mistake for Obama to acknowledge Limbaugh in the first place, but now that that's done, I think the only way for Obama to get him out of the picture is to take him on, mano a mano. Otherwise, Limbaugh is going to be hovering nearby taking advantage of every little slip-up, and he'll be doing that for all of Obama's time in office. Does Obama need that distraction? I think not. So I say: Take him on, Mr. President - or get used to having that wolf baying at the door for the next 4 years.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

There's fighting for human rights, and then there's...

Wow. Check out this article. As one friend of mine would say, "This is nucking futs".

This is from Canada, by the way, where the only thing we get that is Canadian is cold fronts and bacon.

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.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Jessica Simpson fat!

Okay, I had largely tried to avoid discussing celebrities and their foibles in my blog, but I gotta say something here about the pics of Jessica Simpson below:



Granted, the woman has put on few pounds, but she's hardly fat! I bet thousands of women wish they were that "fat"! That's the problem with being a celebrity: Everything about you is scrutinized. Maybe it's because I prefer curves on a woman, but she honestly does not look fat to me.

Alright, got that out of my system. Next time I'll be discussing real stuff! :-D

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Lotto drama

Hey, folks. Trying to make my comeback here. Check out this story:

Woman accused of taking scratch-off ticket gives up claim to prize money

Sad that a friendship broke up over money, but I think that this didn't need to happen. The woman who had lent her friend the scratch-off ticket to her friend to check out should have just held on to it and done it later. Of course, this is all hindsight, but still - a little logic should tell you that money makes people do funny things, and it especially applies if it's a lot of money.

So what do you folks think of this story?

Friday, December 12, 2008

Creative juices have run dry

Man, I have never had a dry spell like that. I don't know if the election burned out my creative juices or what, but in the past couple of weeks, I just couldn't get the ol' creative writing mojo going. My art pretty much came to a standstill as well. I've never had the well run dry like that. Thing is, it's not like there's anything in my life right now that's stressing me out to the point that my creativity has shut down. I just - can't seem to get my thoughts focused to write about something. It's not like there hasn't been anything to write about; I just can't seem to get the words going before X news event is replaced by another.

So what do I hope to be doing here now? I don't know. Like I said, I've never had a creative shutdown like this. I guess I'm just writing about my experience so that I might find some focus to get my creative mojo flowing again. You know how I feel right now creatively? Like a boxer in a ring who's being given the countdown, and who's trying to decide whether or not to get back up again. Thing is, why do I feel like I've been in a fight? What has brought about this boxer analogy impression? Like I said, it's not like I'm going through a divorce or custody suit or anything truly stress-inducing.

Well, the helpful thing about the boxer analogy is that it reminds me that the boxer won't win the fight if he doesn't get back up before the countdown is done. No, I will get through this. I've fought through ruts before and I'll do so again. I've just never been so public about it. Again, I don't know what I hope to accomplish by being so public about this - perhaps I'm just trying to stretch my creativity into new directions. After all, part of being an artist or writer is the willingness to take such chances. So - what happens next? I don't know, but I will find out.

I had considered taking a short break, but that would only get me out of the habit of writing, and if I get out of the habit of writing, then I'll never get out of this creative rut. No, the solution here is to keep plugging along. I'll keep you updated on my progress. Understand though, that I will get through this - this I promise you, folks. I will remain standing in the ring when the count is done. And I won't need no Rocky music to do it.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

The BCS and history

From an e-mail I got earlier this week:

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The BCS is so proud of their computer rankings that they have gone back and rated historical events. In a stunning turn of events they have declared Germany the winner of World War II!

The BCS criterion for this amazing pick was:
* Germany’s strength of schedule in defeating Austria , Poland , Norway , Belgium , Yugoslavia and at-the-time number 2 France.
* Losses to Russia and the United States at the end of the WWII Bowl were not enough to erase style points from their early decisive and overwhelming victories.
* Germany also fought a tough number 1 ranked Great Britain team to a draw which helped boost their poll standings even more. Britain fell to number 5 after the battle

The Final Poll ranking at the end of WWII
1. Germany
2. Italy – their defeat of the mighty Olympic country of Greece was almost enough to push them to the top
3. Japan based on victories over Manchuria, the Philippines and an early victory over the US in the Hawaii Bowl at Pearl Harbor
4. France – based on strength of schedule from WWI and holding off Germany for 6 weeks
5. Great Britain – Inability to defeat Germany during the Blitz Bowl doomed their title chances
6. Russia – strong finish but lost style points at the beginning of the War. Loss of Poland ended their title run
7. United States – decisive victory at the end could not overcome late entry and stunning defeat in the Hawaii Bowl.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops was quoted as saying “this again shows the wisdom of the BCS system in awarding the victory to Germany . They certainly have a grasp of the value of running up the score on opponents – coach Hitler had the right idea and we just followed that example when we play and it has paid off for us”.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated...

...but not by much! Sorry I've been so lax in posting the past couple of week, folks. Things just piled up on me, and last week was just crazy-busy. But I wanted to post SOMETHING today so that you won't think that I was kidnapped by gypsys or abducted by aliens. I'm good.

I'll try to hit the ground running tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Hey, I'm back, and I brought Leonard Pitts with me

Sorry to have been away longer than expected, folks - but I'm back, and I'm bad. Well, not really - I'm just back.

Anyway, to hit the ground running, I'd like to bring up an issue that Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. brought up about public education in D.C. and whether Barack Obama is going to send his daughters there. Pitts feels - as I do - that Obama should send his kids to a private school. He feels that way, and yet he laments that it's necessary. At the end of his column, he states:

"Too many of us, I think, have made peace with the idea that public schools don't work, have come to regard it as normal that they crank out poorly educated kids, have come to accept that certain children in certain places are ineducable. But I saw the falsity of that with my own eyes while traveling the country for ''What Works,'' saw some of the nation's best students in some of its most dire places.

The failure here, then, is not the students', but ours, a failure of will and imagination. We need to reassess the things we take for granted. We need to decide that our children deserve better.

And we need to ask a simple question: If public schools are not good enough for the president's kids, what makes us think they are good enough for ours?"


I was also surprised to see actual criticism of teachers' unions in his column. I have been critical of teachers' unions for years, and they are one of the reasons that I advocate tuition vouchers. Pitts does not state his views on the matter, but it seems to me that public schools and teachers' unions are not going to be motivated to change unless they have competition to gain and retain students.

You know what? If Obama truly intends to bring change, this would be a good start. Obama, start by changing the Dept. of Education and the teachers' unions. Get them to realize that they're part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Get them to realize that their obsession with protecting themselves and their power has damaged generations of kids. Obama, you could REALLY institute change by advocating tuition vouchers. I don't buy that argument that tuition vouchers violate the church/state separation wall, because the gov't had already had a form of a tuition voucher with the GI Bill, and our school system didn't go to hell in a handbasket, did it? In fact, it helped a lot of students. Like we could do now.

If Obama can manage to get this ball rolling, then I'll start believing that he's a miracle worker.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Gas prices and blog news

Below are a couple of pictures I took while testing out my new cellphone. The Santa one is a t-shirt in a local store. The other pic is to show that gas actually went under $2 a gallon here. Wow.



Now for some blog news: Gang o' mine, I am going to take a short respite. I got real-life stuff to take care of, an' me writin' fangers is gettin' tired. I'll be back on Sunday the 17th.

In the meantime, enjoy my buddy Joel's blog. I certainly do! :-)

See you in a week!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Reporter is "excited" about Obama victory

I'm posting a link to this edtoon, rather than posting the image here, because some of you might find it offensive, and it's probably not safe for viewing at work. It's an actual editorial cartoon, and I have to wonder how many newspapers ran it. However, I have to ask:

NOW do you believe that there's a liberal bias in the media? ;-)

There's a pun I could use here, but it's so bad that I'll pass. :-p

Sunday, November 09, 2008

A quick note

For those of you who saw the start of my entry on gay marriage - er, that was supposed to be a draft. Apparently, I hit "Publish Post" instead of "Save Now", because I noticed later that I had already got a comment on it. Anyway, that blog entry is back in draft status, and I'll publish it later. However, for the commentator, your comment is still there. I'll publish it whenever I publish the blog entry that it goes to. My apologies.

Friday, November 07, 2008

TCU falls to Utah, dooming BCS chances

As I was in the process of noticing that fellow blogger Joel had posted rather lightly yesterday, I watched in horror as my local university, TCU, lost to its conference foe Utah. Thus, its hope for a shot at the BCS is dashed for another season. See, if we were USC or some other BCS school, we'd still have a shot even with two losses, but non-BCS schools have to be abso-freakin-lutely perfect just to get a look in our direction. I wanted to wax eloquently about the heartbreaking loss, and I wanted to describe the agonies of defeat and such, but despite all that, only one word comes to mind:

CRAP!