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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

A New Comic? Merry Dougmas!

That's right, I'll do anything to make myself a holiday. My birthday is just an asshair over a month away, but this month, it's Dougmas. Give me one good reason why not?
I posted a new comic over at BoneDaddy Comics, but it's only a teaser, that story is for when Golden Brown is finished. I still have to work out when and how often I'll be posting pages, but you can have a little preview. I'll allow it. Oh, and despite the fact that I recently received a banjo as a gift, the title for it was in place for a looooong time now. As the story progresses, you'll understand more. Golden Brown resumes next week/year.
That's all I have to say at the moment. Christ/Michael/Doug/X-Mas shopping is all done, errand need to be run, then it's time for food & fun!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The Banana Didn't Fall Far From the Tree





Last week, Isabella saw me drawing this guy from the comic (sorry April, Isabella's allowed to see what I'm drawing before it's out). She asked what was wrong with him, and not knowing how else to explain him, I just said he was a burned guy. A couple days ago, I noticed her drawing this face, and she said, "Daddy, do like my burned guy? I was surprised she just had this in her head from a week ago. She also decided he need different colored eyes, plus a bumble bee & couple ice cream cones (one is broken).

Thursday, December 11, 2008

For Whom the Doug Tolls



I just found this video posted on Metallica's website, posted a few days ago. It has soviet propaganda, chemical warfare, zombies, it is fucking awesome! I wasn't even expecting them to come out with another video yet, so this was like an early X-Mas present from Metallica. Yay!

I just finished For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway, and holy shit--I've never seen such a walking contradiction in an author! He can drag out one man dying over 5 pages, or say the same thing over and over about 20 times in a paragraph, rewording each sentence slightly different. Twenty pages will go by with absolutely nothing going on, pissing me off. Then another twenty pages go by with intense action. Another twenty pages, conversations and "obscenity in the milk of" or "obscenity of such and such", and then twenty pages of anticipating action that doesn't come. It was a good read overall, though, it taught me a bit about pre-WWII Spain and guerilla life in the hills. Oh, from a little side story in the book, I FINALLY get what the Metallica song of the same name is about!

Last Saturday Isabella had a dance recital at an old folks home, which went pretty well. Then on Tuesday she had another recital at the Empire, and she obviously loves being on stage, because she was all smiles and dancing good. There were older girls there who were part of a troupe, and Isabella watched them intently every time they came on to dance, so I'm guessing she's gonna want to keep going to class after the new year starts.

The banjo lessons are coming along. I'm trying to familarize myself with fingerpicking, but I need to pick up a couple metal picks to get a proper pluck. Also, I need to practice when a certain someone isn't trying to watch her stupid news.

On a last note, Betty Page died today. She had a heart attack a few days ago, I imagine it's got something to do with that. She was 85 years old.

Monday, December 08, 2008

RIP Dimebag, 4 Years


Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Morning Funeral, Evening Concert



It's been a very interesting weekend.
We blew into Devils Lake Friday afternoon and ate with my family, as usual. Later on we headed over to the Paddlewheel Lounge to see how Tab and her family were holding up. At this point, I have to say I like the Paddlewheel Lounge. It's dark, it wasn't too crowded. I can understand if Tab gets sick of it, but I think it's cool.
Anyway, everyone seemed to be doing alright. They had come back from the visitation not too long before, so I imagine they could have used a night out.
Jess arrived before too long, then had to leave again to go get a gift she's been keeping for me. Everyone apparently already knew about it, but they were pretty good at not spilling the beans. Imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes to see a big ol' banjo sitting in front of me! Her dad had given it to her a while back. Then she got a newer one from him, and wondered if he'd mind if she gave me the old one, since she knew I loved my string isntruments and could give it a loving home. If I haven't already said so a billion times, Thank you Jess! I appreciate it very much, and I plan on evolving a little death-bluegrass out of it just as soon as I get more familiar with it.
Later on that night, Derek started trying to convince me & Kevin to go to the Big John Bates concert with him. I kept telling him I couldn't on this short of notice, I'm here to see my family, can't afford it, blah blah blah. He told me not to worry about that stuff, it was taken care of, blah blah blah. Finally Karissa told me I had to go, and Tab told me I had to go, and Kevin, and so forth.
On Saturday morning we went to Tab's brother's funeral. Funerals don't bother me, but I hate to see the looks of grief on my friends' faces. Comes with the territory, I suppose. And someone's cell phone really did ring during the service, and that person really did answer it and whisper, "Can I call you back?". Whoever that was, we all heard you.
It was a nice service, though, and I took the opportunity after the cemetery part finished to go visit Dane Garcia's grave. He killed himself almost 2 years ago now, and I feel bad that I never got around to it. We were never really close in high school, but he was a friend, nonetheless.
That afternoon, Derek, Kevin and I took off for Fargo. We had plenty of time (too much, in fact), so we tried out HuHot, which was really good except I don't like feeling like cattle with buffet-style lines. But we got to watch our noodles & meat & sauces get fried up on that huge frying surface (what the hell is that called, anyway?) and speculated on what they did with the excess food/grease/water that fell into the middle receptacle (I thought whoever lost some sort of bet would have to eat it).
We checked into the motel and took a cab to the Aquarium, where we found out the show didn't actually start for another 2 hours. So naturally we hoofed it over to the Northern and saw some pretty ladies before coming back to see the last couple songs playd by the opening band The Hot Button, which was pretty cool. I'd wanted to see them, too, so i was happy to find out they opened for BJB that night.
The Big John Bates concert was awesome! We got to talk quite a bit with their drummer, J.T. before the show--this guy couldn't have been nicer. He wasn't in a real hurry anywhere, and was happy to mingle us. He even had an old short-brim fedora on, explaining that his previous hat was stolen by a girl, but this one was given to him the next night by another girl. I told him that I'd bring him a back up next time they were in Fargo--now I've written it, so hold me to it!
The show itself was great. We stood in the exact same place as last time, and toward the end, Derek got a bit of bravery, and when they invited people up on stage, he hopped up and danced his little heart out. After a little coercion, he managed to pull Kevin up, too. I wanted to be in on this, so I hopped up too, and we three had a shindig on stage with the band.
After the show, we were hanging around trying to see if there was an after-party. I was personally invited by Big John himself to go to the Hot Rod Shop (yeah yeah, it's because I was standing there trying to congratulate him for a good show when the guy throwing the party told him about it and he was being nice, but it was still cool). I tried asking the after-party guy, a big dude in a cowboy hat, where the Hot Rod Shop is, and couldn't have been more ignored. After that we decided the hell with it! We don't need to make asses of ourselves trying to crash an afterparty we're not really invited to!
While Derek and Kevin were getting ready to leave, I asked J.T. (paying attention? he's the drummer) if they needed help loading their gear, and I totally got to help the band pack up! You might be asking why that's so special? Since they're not a stadium band or anything, they have to load up their own shit. That means the band and the dancers had to do it all. Since they put on a great show, I thought it'd be awesome to help them afterward. Big John didn't really do much, he mingled a bit with the ladies afterward. But I got to hang out with J.T., sCare-oline, and the Voodoo Dollz (dancers) Little Miss Risk and Lola. A couple seemed to be having a long night at that point, but they were all very nice to me and very appreciative of the help. I even got to carry the guitars to the trailer!
Afterward, I made my way back to Derek & Kevin, who were waiting in the cold for me. As we waited for our cab, we were visited by a drunk guy on a bike who asked me for hash. He was nice enough, so I let him down politely. Back at the motel, we ordered pizza that we had to cancel after waiting over an hour and a half, and Derek got pretty sick. Oh yeah, and he got the Jagermeister bottle the band was drinking from! One of the bar employees gave it to him because he said he was in the band, and right away he ran over to Big John and somehow got the whole band to sign it.
Sunday morning found me surprisingly awake and doing well. We made it to Grand Forks before Derek finally let me drive his pickup, and we made it back by about noon.
I felt really bad on Saturday because Isabella didn't want me to leave. She even cried a little, but was better when April brought Aiden over. When I came back Sunday, we hung out for a bit watching cartoons before she was spirited away by my mom & niece to Walmart.
It was maybe one of the strangest weekends I've ever encountered so far.
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