I’m pretty sure I’m not bipolar….

206,

     Although it was a dark time, my tenure at Toys R’ Us was not without some silver lining.  If it wasn’t for that job, I would’ve never found out about Pearls Before Swine.  During my breaks at Toys R’ Us, I had nothing to do but read whatever leftover newspaper is hanging around the break room.  The local area’s newspaper happened to print Pearls Before Swine strips.  Before I go on, here’s the cast list in brief.

• Rat = No I didn’t forget his name.  Rat is his name.  Very rude, very self centered, very egotistic, very short tempered.  Thinks he’s the smartest one in any room.
• Pig = The complete opposite of Rat.  Humble, finds light in any dark situations.  Never takes insults, of which he receives many, personally.  No ambitions whatsoever.

     A great deal of the time the strip deals with the interaction between Pig and Rat.  Pig is always the naive one to a fault while Rat always tries to straighten him out with as much insult as he can muster.  Usually Rat fails and Pig always ends up blissfully unaware of his mistakes.  It never ceases to amaze me just how much of a polar opposites these two characters are, and yet they hang around each other.  It seems to me, Rat hangs around Pig just to make himself feel superior, although that’s just speculation.  Who know why Pig hangs around Rat.

     There are other characters besides these two, and they are either very normal and average or very deranged and absurd.  Zebra and Goat are the reasonable ones while Guard Duck and the Aligators are absolutely absurd.  As if crazy characters aren’t enough, one of the signature trademarks of Pearls Before Swine is their crazy attempts at making puns.  It would devote entire strips to making one pun work.  The most memorable one to me was the one involving the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  Any idea how they did it?  Well, here’s the gist of it.  Pig is talking about some guy named Hale who hired some other guy named Goode and ten chinese brothers to make a road.  At the the end, Rat said "So the road to Hale…".  Pig continued "Is paved by Goode and ten Chins."  I was so taken back by just how ludicrously well it worked out that I was speechless.  I wanted to stand up and clap for making such a silly, silly pun.  In my entire history of life, I have never seen so much effort put into making a pun work.  It was so awesomely bad that I can’t help but be charmed by it.  I stuck with the strip and was never disappointed once by it.

206,

     This one is going to be short.  Partially because I’m dead tired, but mainly because Bizzaro doesn’t have a main cast or, for that matter, a main universe.  Bizzaro strips are always one panel long, and it’s damn near impossible to predict what the next strip is going to be about seeing how surreal each strip can get.  In Bizzaro’s universe, as the name implies, everything is completely turned upside down.  The imagery is familiar, but the situation is anything but.  Despite the out of this universe motif and situations, it always strikes a very real chord in our heads.  Take one strip that had a giant rat trap with a McDonnalds bag for bait and a bunch of lab rats waiting on the sidelines for the victim to come along.  How about the time that a truck with Hamburger Helper emblazoned on the side crashed into a factory and set loose a bunch of cows.  Oh yes, very often than not, Bizzaro has a message for us.  Hopefully one day, we’ll listen to some of them.

208,

     Here’s one of my favorite comic strips.  I found out about "Foxtrot" about 4 or 5 years ago at a Borders.  I was hanging around looking for something to read.  One of the random things I picked up was a Foxtrot collection.  I read a couple of strips and quickly realized just how unique it is.  I remember one of the first strips I read involved one of the characters, Jason Fox, playing around with Star Trek action figures with X-Files action figures.  I didn’t expect them to use real world pop culture referances.  After that I was hooked.  Here are the characters of this strip from oldest to youngest:

• Roger Fox = Patriarch.  Balding.  A bit naive despite his age.  Very technologically disabled.  Sucks at Poker but thinks otherwise.  Same with chess.
• Mom = Can’t remember her name.  The most reasonable of the bunch.  Her cooking would make Lemon proud.  Tends to get obsessive (Beanie Babies, Titatnic).
• Peter Fox = Oldest child.  A total klutz at any sports but tries anyways.  Can eat 2x his body weight in one sitting.  Speed demon behind the wheel.  Will do anything to impress a girl.
• Paige Fox = Middle child.  Total typical teenage girl.  Into boy bands and boys and stuff.  Annoyed by her younger brother (and for good reasons).  Has a sweet tooth.  Will do anything to impress a boy.
• Jason Fox = Youngest child.  Child prodigy.  Computer wiz.  Into just about anything that’s considered geeky.  Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Files, LOTR, the works.  Will do anything to avoid girls.

     The funny thing about this strip is that it’s been around since 1988, but I never saw it in the Chronicle until about 3 or 4 years ago.  The Chronicle sure is slow to pick up new strips.  The great thing about the Foxtrot comic strip is that they have characters with very different interest.  This way, nothing in pop culture goes by them.  At the height of LOTR madness, Jason was there to go crazy about it as well.  When Justin Timberlake broke up with Britney, Paine had something to say about it.  When the Superbowl is coming up, Peter and the dad watches it as well.

     Pop culture referances aside, the strip also likes to poke fun at the very nature of comic strips as well.  One time, they had a running plot where there’s an ink shortage.  It’s like a power outage except with ink.  So we only see Jason’s glass frames and Peter’s baseball cap.  Another time, the characters talked about how Dilbert uses his comic strip to advertise their website.  They thought it was inappropriate, but the very next thing we see was the Foxtrot website address!  Good times.

     What really attracted me most about this strip though is that on occasion it would poke fun at computer programming.  Over the years Jason has written some very funny computer programs.  It’s always displayed as pseudocode so that the normal readers will have a shot at getting the joke, but it’s even funnier if you already know how to read a computer program.  Obviously the cartoonist, Bill Amend, has a background in computer programming.  It’s a damn shame that he’s semi-retired.

     Last December, he announced that he’s not going to make Foxtrot strips daily anymore.  He’ll only make one strip per week for Sunday.  The worst part of this deal is that the strips that show up Sundays are usually not as good as the other ones.  Instead of 3 or 4 panels, he has 6 panels to work with, but from all the Sunday ones that I’ve read, he’s never really found his stride in making his strip work past 4 panels.  That’s why usually, he just combines the 6 panels into one very big panel.  Just my luck I guess.  Oh well after 19 years, I guess the guy deserves a break.

208,

     Here’s one from left field.  Look all you want, but you’re not going to find The Boondocks comic strip in the SF Chronicle.  They used to be in there though.  Not surprising considering the content.  The Boondocks is by far the most controversial mainstream comic strip in my theme of the week.  I remember really getting into it on back in early 2006 when I read the newspaper fairly thoroughly seeing how I had nothing else to do on BART.  So here’s the lowdown on the principal characters.

• Huey Freeman = 10 year old black kid living in white suburbia with his grandpa.  Future revolutionary.  Pressent "White Man Conspiracy theorist".
• Riley Freeman = Huey’s 8 year old brother.  Motto for life, "Keepin’ it gangsta’".  Hopes to be the first guy to outrun the cops on "Cops".
• "Granddad" = Huey and Riley’s grandfather.  Relocated them from the South side of Chicago to the suburbs.  Hoped to live out the rest of his life in peace.  Didn’t happen.  Crazier than your average crazy old black man.

     "The Boondocks" is actually a fairly recent phenomenon compared to the likes of "Blondie" or "Garfield".  The strip started in 1999 and gained popularity fairly quickly thanks to its edgy satire on many race related issues.  I’ve never heard of them until about a year and a half ago as I recall when I read it for the first time in the SF Chronicle.  Reading Boondocks strips takes some getting used to.  It’s kinda like reading a political cartoon except in comic strip form.  Whereas most of your traditional comic strips rely on situation and slapstick for humor, Boondocks rely more on our knowledge of stereotype and current events.

     The strip likes to take current events or stereotypes and put a different spin on it.  Huey’s "Conspiracy Theorist" mind always sees everything as just a way to keep the black man down, and Riley’s thug attitude always wants to exploit it somehow for himself.  Of course the Granddad usually just rants about how different it was in his day.  Obviously I don’t really belong in the targeted demographics for this strip, but it grew on me anyways.  It helps to remind me that viewpoints can differ greatly amongts the races.  I wonder if they’ll ever make an indonesian-centric comic strip?

207,

     I thought I’d try an old idea this week.  Instead of making a theme month though, I’m going to do a theme week.  This week’s theme is "Cartoon Strip Week".  It seems that my sister and I are the only two people I know that actually read comic strips in the paper, so here is my effort to enlighten the other readers.

     Today, I’m gonna talk about Garfield.  I’m fairly certain that the Garfield comic strip is the first comic strip that I was exposed to.  I remember back in the late 1980’s having a small book that has a collection of maybe about a year’s worth of strips.  I remember that that was the first time I’ve heard of a lasagna.  I had no clue what it was, but I knew that Garfield loves it.  Anyways, here’s a quick bio of the characters.

• Garfield = Fat, orange cat.  Somehow walks on two hind legs upright.  Loves italian.  loves to sleep/torture Odie.
• Odie = Yellow dog with a big spot on his side.  licks anyone in sight.  Perpetually kicked off the table by Garfield.
• John Arbuckle = Owner of both Odie and Garfield.  Cartoonist.  Never had any luck with women.  That is until recently.

     Garfield’s been around since a little bit before I was born and somehow still manages to stick around all this time.  Most of the stories take place at their home where Garfield, Odie, and John co-mingle comically.  John is always scheming for a way to attract the ladies.  Odie is always hanging around doing dog things like chasing a ball, but Garfield is the real oddball of the group.  He rarely acts like a cat.  He watches TV, drinks coffee, sleeps with a teddy bear, answers the phone, and a whole myriad of other things.  A lot of the times, he pulls practical jokes on John or/and Odie to great effect.  When Garfield does act like a cat, he’s usually very cognizant it, and avoids it as much as he can.  He climbs trees but always regrets it afterwards when he gets stuck.  He plays with balls of yarn but always felt kinda silly for doing so.

     The most common theme in Garfield strips, oddly enough, is boredom.  Being a cat, Garfield isn’t exactly destined to do great things nor is he expected to do great things.  He just passes the time anyway he can to the detriment of John and Odie.  Garfield is truly an unpredictable element in John’s household, and I love watching the chaos caused by one fat, orange cat.  A little chaos does a world of good sometimes you know.

206,

     2 weeks straight!  This is unheard of!  Before you know it, I will have blogged a month straight!  Keep your fingers crossed.

     So I went to see her again.  What can I say.  I’m hooked.  As usual, I asked some random video game question just so I can talk to her, but the fact is that if I hadn’t enjoy the few times I talk to her, I probably would have stopped seeing her by now.  Only now I’m trying to figure out how to get past the whole customer-clerk relationship.

     As long as I see her in the store, that’s probably all we’ll ever be.  I seriously need to actually talk to her as an individual and not as a store clerk.  Problem is that I don’t think she sees me as anything more than a customer.  My strategy is to become a "regular".  The problem here is money.  There’s no way I can come into the store everyday and not buy anything.  That just looks too suspicious on my part, but I can’t afford to buy too many things either.  Hopefully, I can just come in every other day and get myself kinda known over there.  I’ll keep you posted on my little tactic.

     In other non-"Bob" news, the last few times I drive by the Pizza Hut near my house, they still have a "Hiring drivers" sign.  What do you guys think?  Should I go for it?

205,

     I tried to write a review for "Reign Over Me", but I kept getting stuck.  Here’s what I think of it.  It’s a great movie.  Both Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle did very well in their respective parts especially cheadle, but that’s a given.  One of the movie’s strongest theme is that of grieve’s paralyzing power.  In this case, Sandler’s character, Charlie, is so grief stricken by the loss of his family during 9/11 that he decides to bury his past completely.  He did it so well that he didn’t even recognize his old college roomate Alan (Cheadle) when they met by chance on the street.  Everything in his life is in one form or another a distraction from the pain.  He does absolutely nothing else besides distracting himself.  It’s somewhat fantastical to see him do all these things to distract himself, and yet it’s all believable.  When you’re blinded by the past what can you do?

     "Reign Over Me" most certainly has had an effect on me, hopefully a positive one, and for these reasons, I recommend this movie to just about anyone.  It’s good to get in some practice with grieve because who know the next time you have to deal with it.

207,

     Forgive the generic title.  I seriously could not come up with anything better.

     My plan for today was simple enough.  Go use up my movie coupon.  Funny how a simple plan can end up with amazing results.  So here’s what I did today.

     I started out with a trip to Kinko’s.  I needed to make flyers to post around my neighborhood to find the Ipod’s owner.  After that, I went around to as many streetlight poles in my neighborhood and started posting my flyer.  I figured the best and safest way to find the owner of the Ipod is to have them send me an e-mail.  I figured I’d get a bunch of responses, and I would have to weed through them to find the rightful owner.  But that’s for later.  Once I ran out of flyers I went straight to San Francisco.

     I did my usual bit of parking at St. Francis Woods where parking is not restricted to 2 hours and take any Muni that goes downtown.  Before I went, I decided to eat at this Italian place next to the movie theater at West Portal.  Uncharacteristically, I ordered a dish that was completely devoid of any meat.  No chicken, no meat, nothing.  It was only pasta, basil, tomatoes, and basil seeds.

AMAZEMENT #1:  I loved it!  I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything outside my house that had no meat in it that I genuinely love.  Could this be a new beginning for me?…Naaaah.

     Once I finished my lovely lunch, I head over to the Metreon to watch Reign over Me with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle.  I’ll be writting a movie review tomorrow, so I’ll save everything I have to say about it for the review.  Many movies before have included video games somewhere, somehow mainly as just to give a person something to do, and in all those instances the video game itself is practically inconsequential.  Usually they would use generic sounds of shooting, explosions, and some samplings from a very old video game, and when we do see something on the screen, it’s almost never anything more than just a bunch of aliens getting shot at.  But…

AMAZEMENT #2:  4 words.  Shadow of the Colossus.  I know that many of you (exactly %50) won’t understand what I’m talking about, and because it’s a very, very video game oriented subject, I’m going to talk about it in my gaming blog.

     After I managed to extricate myself from the movie, I went home.  Well, actually, I did stop by Red Robin to eat dinner, but nothing out of the ordinary actually happenned.  I figured, "Why write about it.  Nothing happenned."

     On my way home, I did decide to stop by the video game store.  I’m sure you know which one.  I saw her again.  I wanted to talk to her some more, but the store was packed with people.  I’m sure she would be too busy to deal with me anyways.

     When I got home, I checked my e-mail/rat trap to see how many e-mails I got about the Ipod.  I only got one, and well…

AMAZEMENT #3:  It’s him!  I’m sure of it.  He mentions things about the Ipod that only the owner could have known.

     So you see, I had to call today an amazing day.  3 things I simply didn’t expect happenned all within the span of 12 hours.  Amazing huh?

game blog

206,

     100th post!!!  WOOHOO!!!  Who knew I’d be able to write a hundred blogs!!  And you suckers lapped it up like a little …Blog…lapping-up…thingie.  Boy that came out wrong.  What I meant to say was, thanks for staying with me for this long.  I know that all four of my readers are very loyal readers, and although you may not comment my blogs, you’re all I’ve got.  Let’s see if I can make a hundred more?

     Guess what I found while I walked the doggies?  AN IPOD NANO  (First generation in case you *cough*Lemon*cough* were wondering)!  Fortunately for the idiot that dropped it, I’m going to look for him/her.  I’m gonna post some flyers around my neighborhood, and see if I can find them.  Otherwise, I’m keeping the Ipod case.  My Ipod could really use one.

     Also, my traffic school certificate came in the mail today.  I had two options.  I could either send the certificate through mail to the court or I could hand deliver it myself.  After the snafu that was my suspended license, I didn’t take any chances and delivered it myself.  Everything seems ok now.  Let’s hope I never have to do this EVER AGAIN!

     Guess what my PS3 is doing right now?  That’s right!  It’s folding proteins!  Or at least I think it is.  Turns out the update with the aforementioned Folding@Home application came out today.  I still can’t believe how giddy I am over this.  I mean seriously!  Why am I so giddy over number crunching besides the fact that I’m not doing the number crunching!  Is it just because I’d look for any reason to be excited about my PS3?  Who knows.  Maybe.  Most PS3 owners are excited about the "Background Downloading" feature, a feature that lets users download stuff while they’re doing other stuff like play a game, in today’s update, but not me!  I’m happy that my PS3 is going to crunch a load of numbers!  Weird.

208,

     Alright folks!  I knew this day would come.  I’m running out of ideas again.  What can I say.  My days kinda blur together.  Tomorrow, I hope to rectify this problem by finally sticking to my table of contents.  Hopefully, I’ll get something to write about.  Wish me luck.