Neglect

I've been neglecting this blog lately. Not sure if it really matters in the long run. I haven't really had much to yammer about really.

I re-read Seven Soldiers in its entirety recently. I've gotta say, that the entire thing, when read together, is absolutely freakin' awesome. If you're interested, make sure to either pick up the handful of trades, or just dig up the various issues. What was so great about the series was that it was all like one giant piece of precision clockwork. Everything clicked with everything else, so that the only way you could truly appreciate it was to read everything. I'd like to be able to do that one of these days. Create a comic book series that was... precise. I don't know.

In the Face

So, I'm at my Brother's newly acquired house, helping with the renovations. Our task on Friday was to tear down an old wall, thus expanding the space of a couple of rooms. The wall was an old style plaster wall. Here's how old school plaster walls work. First, you place a series of large thick stud boards vertically, evenly spaced, several feet apart. Next, you nail up a series of smaller, thinner boards, called lathe (I think I spelled that right) horizontally, between the stud boards, with little gaps between each piece of lathe. Then you spread on your plaster. The plaster covers the late and fills the gaps in each piece of lathe, allowing the plaster to achieve a firm hold, and thus form a wall that will last for many years.

To destroy a plaster wall, you must first remove the plaster (me hit with hammer until bust), then remove all the lathe (which you can either remove the slow way with a nail bar, or the fast way, which is, me hit with hammer until bust). Then you can take your stud lumber down somehow.

We had destroyed most of the plaster and the lathe on this wall, except for a small section near the top which was out of reach. Because me like hitting things with hammer, I volunteered to climb up and break out the rest of the plaster and the lathe. So, I'm up on the ladder, hammering away on the plaster/lathe, when suddenly...

KER-POW! A chunk of lathe rockets out of the wall, flips in midair, and cracks me square in the face!

"OWIE!" I yell, which is followed by a chorus consisting of, "Owie! Ow! Owowow! Owowoo! Ow! Ow! Owie! My face! Ow!"

This causes Dad and Bro to stop working for a second to check on me. "What's wrong?" they say.

"A Ow! Chunk Ow! of lathe Ow! hit me Ow! in the face Ow!"

"Huh," they respond. Bro takes a closer look and goes, "Yeah, you've got a cut on your nose."

"That's not very surprising," I grumble. So I hop down from the ladder and head out to the hallway mirror to inspect the damage. Surely enough, there's a little laceration on my nose with a little bit of blood bubbling up. There's also an ugly red/purple mark running diagonally across the left side of my face, just below the eye. Upon closer inspection, the dust mask I had been wearing was also cut, right around the bridge of my nose.

I returned to the room we were working in, and Bro said, "You know what we've gotta do, right?" So I stood there while Bro took a picture of my face with his phone. I'm sure it will end up on my myspace sooner or later. After that, I blotted up the blog with a kleenax, and it was back to work.

On the bright side, I didn't get a black eye, and the little cuts I got have almost healed up already. The moral of the story is: When me hit things with hammer, me not stand directly in front of things me hitting.

Kiss Your Rumsfeld Goodbye!

I mentioned on the other blog that I don't like talking politics, but I'm making an exception today. After all, it's not every week that one of America's Greatest Villians removes himself from office.

Donald Rumsfeld was a villian's villian. He had his own goals, his own agendas, and he didn't care who got hurt in the accomplishment of those goals. He was one of the pointmen for selling Congress and the American people the Iraq War, use Lies, Fear, and good old fashioned Paranoia to convince the good citizens of our pretty damn good country to jump in feet first into the most ill advised war since Vietnam. The joke, of course, is that we won the war without any real trouble and a minimum of casulties. It's been the occupation and restructuring of Iraq that's led to the slaughter of more US Troops and Iraqui citizens than I'd care to count. And yet, time and time again Rumsfeld's told us to stay the course or the terrorists win. Bet he wouldn't think that if he had to drive a Humvee through the Desert while continuously being on the lookout for RPGs or crazy guys with bombs strapped to em...

And the worst part is, Rumsfeld's paranoiac warmonger may be the LEAST of his crimes. There's been a certain degree of evidence pop up that suggests that old Rummy's been planning an invasion of the Middle East long before 9-11 (which, as we all know now had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq). If this is true (and there's a part of me that almost hopes it's not, cause I don't wanna accept that someone could be this evil) then Rumsfeld isn't just a Villian. He's a damn Supervillian.

Is it a bit of an anticlimax that he just resigned out of the blue? Maybe. But who cares? A win is a win. Personally, I'm gonna try to set a little time aside this weekend to celebrate the departure of one of the nastiest bastards to set foot in the White House. Woo-Hoo!

So Much to Do

My last Rant on Halloween didn't post for some reason.

Two and a half days till the Art Show. That's pretty much the only thing on my mind right now.

After the Show wraps up, my other tasks for the year include: Reviews/Links to the various books I picked up in Nashville. Watching the Low Budget Horror flicks I picked up in Nashville. Helping Bro finish his house. Finishing "SDF: Foul Business" and getting it to the printers. Getting ready for "A Very Cactus Christmas" Party.

Man, for a guy who doesn't drink alcohol, I sure throw a lotta shindigs over the course of the year.