June 3, 2007 – Yeah, this is what our founding father’s had in mind.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m profoundly disappointed by the fact that people in today’s world are far more reverent in a movie theater than they are in a worship service. I resigned myself, long ago, to the fact that in a church as big as the one I attend I’m going to have to deal with people forgetting to turn their cell phones off. Hearing a few ring tones every service may simply mean that some people are just too ignorant or forgetful to pay attention to the 2 12 foot power point projections reminding them before the service starts to turn them off. I’ve even decided to be content to merely roll my eyes when the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ring tones go off because maybe the previous ring(s) of other phones wasn’t enough to clue them in to make sure their phone is turned off. But it’s getting pretty stinkin’ ridiculous when people answer their phone in the middle of the service and proceed to hold a conversation. And then to think it’s cute, makes it that much worse. I’m even more disappointed that anyone witnessing that happen is not allowed (read “required”) to slap the phone out of the person’s hand and then throw it as hard as they can against the wall.

But today’s service (to coin a phrase) really takes the cake. First, the guy that sat next to me walked to his seat by walking ON the pews between him and the girl sitting at the end of the pew. They had a nice little laugh about it. Luckily, he was wearing sweat shorts and one of those basketball shirts with plenty of holes in it so he didn’t get dehydrated from the exertion. Apparently, all of this made him cool and somehow I missed it.

The people who sat behind me decided that what they had to say about the people they were gossiping about was way more important than singing worship. They talked through the first 2 songs. When the music got louder, they talked louder. At one point they were yelling back and forth like they would at a night club.

When the service started the guy directly behind me put his foot on the back of the pew I was sitting in right next to my head. Not to be outdone, the chick with him put her leg over the pew on the other side of me with the back her knee resting on the top of the pew, so she could bounce her leg. Turning around, cringing and giving a “seriously?” shrugging got me a disgusted look back, but did nothing to resolve the situation. Anything I would have said at that point would have been entirely ungodly. If someone were acting like this in a movie theater, they’d be asked to leave.

I know, I know…typical teenage behavior, right? I totally agree. These people were in there late 30’s or 40’s. The teenage kid with them obviously learned how to act from his other parent/step-parent family unit, because he seemed well-behaved and respectful. And maybe a little embarrassed.

Now, some people who read this are probably thinking, it’s all about grace and we just need to let these things go and focus on our own relationship with Christ. And it’s fine with me if you feel that way. But I’m a dude who is action packed with issues. I need all the church learning I can get. If I’m sitting in the service, trying to get something out of it, but the ridiculousness going on around me is so big I can’t even focus on anything that’s being taught, then odds are, I’m not the only one.

And don’t even get me started on the “me first” fiasco in the parking lot after the service every Sunday.

May 31, 2007 - Comic contest entry...

Okay, I got the submission finished and submitted with 4 hours to spare. I had everything ready on Monday to submit the Lincoln comic, which I think is some of my best work. I was filling out the entrance form and when I clicked on the agreement link, to make sure I actually do agree with everything in it, I saw that the grand prize winner has to sign the rights to the comic and characters over to the sponsoring company. They'll still pay you to draw it, but if it is a raging success or someone wants to make a movie or Saturday morning cartoon out of it, you have no rights whatsoever. The way I read it, they could sell the toy rights for $200,000 and you don't get anything but the right to go buy the toys. There was no way I was giving up the rights to the Lincoln stories.

So I decided to submit a comic idea I had from many years ago. One that I think has a shot at making it into the top 50 (the prize for which is a plane ticket to San Diego ComicCon), but not the best shot at winning the grand prize. The ticket to ComicCon is what I really want, anyway. Anything beyond that is just gravy.

GC is convinced that it will be the Grand Prize winner, everyone will want it, it'll be a huge hit at the theaters, have 1,000s of toys for sale, and run for years as a Saturday morning cartoon, simply because it's just one more way for me to get screwed over, since I won't own any of the rights to it if it does win. "Dude," I says to him, "you know way WAY too much about my past." He tickles me (but not in a g@y way).

So, short story long, here's the submission (click it to enlarge it)...


Questions? Comments? Snotty Remarks?

May 28, 2007 – I totally rule at ice cream.

Last night we all went to Young’s Dairy to have ice cream and play putt-putt. Heather’s dad and her bother Josh came in first and second in golf. I came in second to last, but I’m cool with it because I totally won at eating ice cream. I had about 37 scoops of lemon custard (which I hadn’t had in many years) and I was totally awesome at it.

I’ve spent the weekend working on www.sarcasticwear.com, www.jankdate.com, and www.customerdisservice.net and I’ve gotten more done in the past 3 days than I imagined possible. www.sarcasticwear.com has 12 shirt designs so far with about 12 more in the works. I’ve gotta make some money first because about 6 of them are going to have to be silk screened. www.jankdate.com is the forum site where people can post their dating horror stories, preferably funny, so that everyone else can enjoy them. www.customerdisservice.net is probably going to be my favorite site for a while. It’s where people can post their tales of terrible customer service. I’m fairly certain I’ll be posting there daily.

May 22, 2007 – Convention News

The convention was great. Our booths were excellent; right at the end of the second row near the bus entrance. We’re planning on getting the same spots next year. We probably had 500 people stop buy on Friday, 700 on Saturday and another 150 on Sunday. Not too many buyers, but lots of great feedback on the www.sarcasticwear.com shirts and the www.alienheadgames.com board games.

I didn’t get the video game finished, but it turned out to be okay. I was planning on having the game just run off the CD, so there would be no install needed, but the build puts some of the 3D objects in a zipped file and to get them to load the app has to be moved to the user’s hard drive. So even though I got the game finished, I didn’t have time to write an installer. The reason it works out is because now I can add another level (which I’ve been playing around with, anyway) and add some intro and level segue animation. I probably won’t put much time into that until next week, though, since I have a lot to do on the t-shirt site.

There were a lot of people who wanted to use credit cards to buy the t-shirts or needed shirts in sizes I didn’t have there, so I gave them stickers and cards and explained that the site is being moved and should be back up this weekend. So that’s the plan this week. Get the site updated and moved.

Probably the highlight of the weekend was when the 2600 guys came over and hung out with us for a while on Sunday. When I went over to the 2600 van to buy some of their t-shirts and a TV-B-Gone (which has been super great fun) I took them some of the SarcasticWear t-shirts. They seemed pretty happy about it and a few of them stopped by and hung out with us for a bit. Bernie S. came over for about 15 minutes we had a pretty interesting conversation.

Everyone buy a TV-B-Gone. http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php. Then we can all go hang out at our favorite Wail-Mayert and turn off the wall of TVs as soon as the customer disservice person puts the ladder away again.

Probably the funniest thing that happened was the reaction of the dude in the bathroom stall when the guy waiting to go walked in and stood INSIDE the stall until dude was finished. (No, Tony, neither of the guys were me) I wish I could capture that look of horror for a page in my comic book. I don’t think the guy meant anything by it, I think there was just a grand lack of any kind of social skill whatsoever. I’d guess a lot of these people don’t get out of their parents’ basement very much.

Second funniest thing was the 30-something guy who stopped and lit into me about the “I’m the guy your daughter is dating online” t-shirt – my most popular shirt at the convention, btw. He walked up, read the shirt, looked horrified and snapped, “Why would you put something like that on a shirt?!”

“Because it’s funny.”

“NO ONE WILL BUY THIS!!!”

“Well, don’t tell the 20 people I’ve already sold them to…heh.”

“Who would buy this!?”

“Lots of people think it’s funny.”

“No they don’t! This is not funny.”

“To you.”

“To ANYONE! It’s like putting ‘I was on Dateline’ on a shirt and wearing it.”

“Dude, that’s awesome! Can I use that?”

“No one will buy this shirt! You should remove it!”

“Sorry you don’t like it.” This is where I stopped trying to be polite and just went right ahead and laughed.

“You can’t sell something like…oh, I have to go…my mother just came out.” Runs like a girl over to the antenna booth where his mother is exiting.

“It was nice meeting you. Seriously. I need stories for my blog and whatnot.”

He never noticed I was wearing the shirt.

Third funniest thing was this guy who came up and was looking at GC’s oscilloscope. He had $80 on it, which was pretty low, from what people were saying, so it got a lot of lookiloos. I tried to speak to everyone who came up because that’s just good business. Plus everyone who knows me knows I just LOVE people. (About 10 minutes has passed since that line, while I regained my composure from laughing at my own joke – bad taste to laugh at your own jokes?) Anyway, I said, “Hi, how are you today?” or something along those lines. He replied, “Uh…iyah…uh…chahku…I…uh…,” and then shouted “SCOPE!!!” and lowered his head about 6 inches from the oscilloscope. For a minute I felt bad for not knowing how to respond, because I thought he might be mentally handicapped, so I just smiled and let him look. But then his friend came over and they walked off together and the guy spoke very plainly telling him about how good a deal the oscilloscope is. (shrug) I should probably feel bad about spending the rest of the day laughing about it off and on.

The moral of this story is that it’s almost impossible to even GIVE AWAY 17 inch CRT monitors these days.

May 16, 2007 – Dayton Customer Service tops itself once again.

We found out yesterday that to sell the www.sarcasticwear.com t-shirts and the www.psychoticgames.com video games at the convention, we have to have a transient vendor's license. I went to the state website and search for it and it sent me to a page the conveniently had the form to print out and a phone number, also for my convenience. So I called the number, explained my situation and asked if this was something I could do online. The lady told me that I could indeed get the license thru their website, but not if I needed it before Friday. So she told me to bring cash or check into the office and they would conveniently have the transient vendor license in my hand when I walked out. I admit I had no disillusions about this being a fast process or a pleasant experience because I'm worked with Dayton city people before.

On my lunch break today I go to the address I was given, drive around for 10 minutes to find a parking space, park 4 blocks away and walk to the building in the light rain. Of course, all of this was expected and not a problem.

I get to the building and they're having some sort of "fun day" for the employees…obviously NOT for the customers. The entire building (and what seemed like the content of about 4 others) are all playing corn hole in the lobby and no one will get out of the customers' way. One lady tries to push her way by and no one moves, then someone throws one of the corn bags too hard and almost hits her in the leg. No one apologizes. They just look at her like SHE was in the way. Awesome.

So I maneuver through the maze of 3 of the 4 corn hole games and finally find the "cheese" at the booth I need. The lady looks at my form, slides it back and said, "We do vendor's licenses here."

"Right," says I, "that's what I'm here for."

"No, you need a transient vendor's license."

"Right."

"That's not this building."

This is the part in most of my customer service experiences where I take that long exaggerated deep breath to keep from freaking out going off on whoever is supposed to customer servicing me. "What building is it, then?"

"40 4th street. Fifth floor," looks around me to watch corn hole.

"Okay, how do I get there from here?"

"Sharp exhale. "Go down to Main street, turn left and then back up 4th. It's on the next corner."

Main Street is a one way street turning right only. So I go to the next street, turn left, then go up two corners and park. I walk up another block and find 40 4th street, go in and go to the 5th floor. Nothing here even resembles it. Awesome. Back down in the lobby I ask the guy at the info desk if the taxation office is in this building. "No," he tells me, "it's next door."

"Thanks," I say. "And thanks for not playing cornhole."

"What?"

Next door is 14 4th street. I obviously misheard what she said, so maybe she's just a moderately ridiculous person instead of a totally ridiculous person. I go in and immediately go to the info desk. There are two security guards sitting there, allowing customers the blessed courtesy of interrupting their conversation when their conversation gets to a low point. I wait my turn. Then, "Is this where the taxation office is?"

"No," says Fatty McGaurdshack, shoving something on the end of a fork into his mouth. "But I'll tell you this…you're real close." Then he starts talking to his buddy again.

"Uh…what's that mean?"

"It's across the street." Talks to his buddy some more.

"There are three buildings across the street."

Sharp exhale. Looks at me nodding indignantly. "Yeah…it's the one over there." Points.

I run a binary randomizer real quick to decide whether to jam the fork in his eye or ask WHICH over there he's talking about. "WHICH over there?"

Really deep breath and really sharp exhale, then he snaps, "CENTRE CITY!"

"You're welcome!" and then I'm out the door.

None of these buildings are marked with what's inside them except this one. It's some cut and curl beauty shop or some such nonsense. 40 Main Street. Awe…wait for it…SOME! I get up to the 5th floor and walk into the Department of Taxation. They guy behind the desk takes off his iPod ear buds and says, "Hi." I explain to him that I've been sent to 4 different buildings, received horrible customer service from all involved, I'm 10 minutes late getting back from lunch already and that if he could help me out in even the smallest possible way it might very well keep me from slamming my Explorer into their lobby. I explain all this using different words than these that sounded slightly less threatening.

He says he certainly can help me, but it would take at least 10 minutes. "Right on! Let's do this thing," I say.

Then the fella starts typing and says, "Why didn't you just do this online?"

"Because it's for the convention this weekend and we just found out about it and the lady that answered my call said it would have to be mailed so if I need it before Friday I'd need to come into the office." I'm holding a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill now.

"Um…they give you your tax number right one the screen when you do it. That's all you need." Then he points to my hand. "If you don't have a check it's going to take a little longer because we don't handle cash and we have to do a form," he holds up a fancy envelope, "and seal it in one of these."

"Awesome!"

I'll tell you this. Someone had better come around to our booth and ask to see this thing, because if I just went thru all that and they don't, I'm going to all 3 of the other buildings they sent me to and punching every person who was a jerk to me right in their fat freaking FACE!!!!! (a dude can dream, can't he?)

May 10, 2007 (Oops)

I’m making progress on the things I need to have ready for the convention, but it will be a miracle if I get it all finished in time. I’ve been silk screening t-shirts and putting on heat transfers and designing this video game like a madman. I’ve got about 40% of the shirts done and I’m at about 70% complete on the video game. I don’t anticipating a great deal of sleep over the next week. It’s going to be a LOT of work, but if I can get it finished it will be worth all the frustration.

I’m hoping to have the index pages up this weekend for http://www.sarcasticwear.com/ and for http://www.psychoticgames.com/. I already have the bones assembled for http://www.alienheadgames.com/, but still have to get the order process in place.

Unfortunately, to get all this finished, I had to bail on going to PA with Heather. I know that disappointed her a lot. I make no excuses. I’m sorry to have let her down like that.

Monday – May 1, 2007 – The trip’s over

I’m back and work today. And I’ve gotta be honest…I’m already missing Michael.