About five or ten minutes ago, I bought a (blasphemous¹ but apartment-friendly² electric) drum kit off eBay. About sixty seconds ago, I received a call from Wells Fargo to verify that I had indeed authorized PayPal to charge a large sum to my Visa.³ Granted, any bank should do this, but the alacrity⁴ and the (blasphemous⁶) to-the-point ease of the conversation are very nice, and surprising given how many horror stories I hear about my bank.⁷ And for fuck’s sake, I paid several hundred dollars, to PayPal no less, that transcends “potential lapse in personal security.” So while the supergiant corporation Wells Fargo clearly cares very little about me,⁸ I can rest assured that said supergiant corporation still wants me as a customer and will cover my sorry ass should Bad Things happen to further that end.

On a related note, I have a bit of credit card debt that could use some commissions plowed into it. Hint hint.

¹ Seriously. Ask any drummer, guitarist, pianist or orchestra snob about electronic instruments. Just don’t ask synth keyboardists, that’s sort of their bread and butter.
² Seriously. Ask any apartment-dweller about the importance of volume knobs, especially later at night.
³ It would have been a hell of a lot easier to use my bank account, yes, but then I’d have to hit up my credit card to make rent, and charges have a lower interest rate than balance transfers. Assuming PayPal doesn’t go down as a balance transfer, in which case I’m fucked either way.
⁴ Thank you, Thesaurus.com!
⁵ This footnote is both recursive and entirely superfluous.^5
6 Phone conversations are not meant to go smoothly. If anything about the conversation were anything other than an affront to God, it would not be taking place over the telephone.
⁷ Protip: Every bank has horror stories. Trim the fat by verifying the storyteller wasn’t just being incredibly stupid, as is more prone to happen than a bank violently raping you for no reason.
⁸ If you doubt the authenticity of this statement, feel free to ask me what I pay in interest on the aforementioned Visa.
^… This post has many footnotes.

Sadly, I’ve done nothing better than get Remote Desktop working right with my HPC. As my computer runs at 1600×1200 normally, most everything doesn’t fit on the 640×240 screen of my MobilePro. One new user account later, and all is well. Since Firefox respects Windows user accounts, I can set it up for a low-res display without screwing up my main account. And if I log onto my computer I can use the HPC as a remote for WinAmp (I have a pair of speakers in my bedroom, but until now no way to control them.)

Oh man, this is nice. IE and Opera lag like a motherfucker on my MobilePro, but it’s a nonissue now, as the heavy lifting is all offloaded onto my PC. I should’ve done this months ago, the second I installed XP Pro.

Fucking lame. What makes these cocksuckers think that people would be anything but pissed off at a cold call? (Protip: pissed off people do not buy things.) And what makes them think that a repeat call would do anything even remotely positive?

I’ve found, though, that answering the phone as a business is a pretty good deterrent. Especially when you slip up and answer with “hello,” and get another call the next day from the same guy. It’s strangely satisfying to swear to a complete stranger that you’re going to shitcan yourself for wasting company time talking to a telemarketer.

(In my defense, that Goodman kid has had it coming, the lazy fucker.)

I got the X-Tract today. The price is still pretty steep, but this thing is so worth it. I haven’t had the opportunity to put the pliers or screwdrivers to the test, but I can already tell that the knife is excellent, every bit as good as I was expecting from Buck. (If you aren’t into knives like I am and need to buy a knife for any reason, I can save you a shit ton of research: spend the cash on a Buck, you will not be disappointed.) There’s no pocket clip, but I was planning on using the sheath anyhow, and using one of the Gerbers I bought to replace my old folder in the “general duty, rest assured that this knife will be destroyed” arena. (You think I’m kidding? You should see what’s left of the first inch of my folder’s blade.)

Also, must… killl…… (I’m slowly but surely reading through Devil’s Panties.)

In other news, I picked up a copy of the Dresden Dolls Companion, well worth it if you’re a Dolls fan, especially if you’re a piano or (god forbid) guitar player. My goal is to learn Good Day sometime before hell freezes over. (I figured I’d be realistic with my timeframe.)

In other, art-related news, I’ve been reading through my Melonpool books, so I’ve built up a strong desire to actually work on the comics, and also to beat a copy of TUM VI out of Steve Troop. (His site’s store seems to be MIA, and I was flat broke when it came out… if it did come out. My memory is characteristically sieve-like on this subject.) So hopefully I’ll actually have something worth looking at up here soon. Imagine that, posting art to my sketchblog, will wonders never cease?

(Click for full 1600×1200 glory)

I was digging through my hard drive and found this. It holds up fairly well for something I drew. (This dates back to sometime in 2005 I think.) Though this is hella not canon (Mireille, being overly serious and a trained mercenary, would not be so sloppy as to let her pants fall off like that. Though I think I realized that at the time and added in a scorch mark on her waistband. Like someone had shot her pants off instead of shooting her. Yeah, it sounds pretty flimsy to me as well.)

And… I guess that’s her natural hair color? Jeez, get a girlfriend, !nk of 2005.

If anyone’s wondering, she can’t actually pull shit out of thin air. At one point that was part of the standard psionic skillset (along with telekinesis and those neat glowy energy beams) to be able to store and retrieve objects from a little pocket dimension, which I think I “borrowed” from Errant Story, but I wisely¹ decided against it.

Further continuity errors: the knife (which is, incidentally, a Buck model 119) should be holstered vertically behind her on her belt, along with a Buck 110 folder on her right hip. She carries other fun toys while on duty, but that’s neither here nor there. Come to think of it, the broadsword is probably not canon either, she strikes me as more of a knife kind of person.

Man, what was I thinking with the colored lines? I should stick to black ink or just vector it without any lines at all. Still, I’ve done worse.

So this is how I spend my Saturday, I guess. Reading Melonpool books and picking my older stuff apart. (Man, remember when Steve Troop used to update his comics? That was awesome. For that matter, remember when i used to update my comics?)

It’s getting about time to retire my trusty folder, and I would like to make it clear at this point that I am pissed the hell off. I bought this knife ages ago in Wal*Mart, of all places, for about five or six dollars. “Sports Afield” is etched into the blade, I guess they’re some no-name, or it’s a tie-in with the magazine that’s preventing me from Googling the damn knife. See, I have never since seen one of these knives anywhere, and despite the price point it is the best folding knife I own. (Also note that it’s dead even with my Buck Special, and make a particular note of the differing price points.) So here I am, looking around at folders costing two to four times as much wondering if they’ll cut it. Yay.

(Incidentally, I found a YouTube video when searching for reviews of the Gerber F.A.S.T., which some dude was boasting about in the comments. You have got to be kidding me. “Spring loaded” is a fancy way of saying “illegal,” “several extra points of failure,” and “superfluous” all at once. But I guess when you got a tiny dick, you need a knife that opens 200 whole milliseconds faster than mine.)

I’ve found a cheap Gerber that looks like it might might might be able to step up to the challenge, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m half-tempted to just spend the fifty bucks on an X-Tract. Okay, I’m probably gonna buy one of those anyway, I really like Buck knives. If only they made a decent folder in my price range…

Also, if anyone manages to find a Sports Afield folder with a 3″ stainless clip point, aluminum handle, liner lock, pocket clip and thumb stud, I will totally cover the cost of the knife and shipping.

I’m playing the piano version of Let It Be. My dad loaned me this book so I could learn more guitar, so of course I’m getting my piano on.

I now see why everyone and their dog plays guitar, this would be a lot easier if I only had to switch up between a few different open chords. A lot easier. (Most guitar parts are written up as a series of chords, and you can get by just strumming those chords and it’ll still sound pretty nice. Pianists don’t have that luxury. I have full on sheet music, and then a second bit of sheet music for my left hand, and a fair bit more to both than just the same five chords. Seriously, you can play most guitar parts with five chords or less, and the arpeggios thereof. This probably explains why rock keyboardists are either “one finger wonders” or Doug Ingle.)

On that note, if you’re looking for some kickass organ playing, check out Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida for the aforementioned Doug Ingle, and Emerson Lake and Palmer for Keith Emerson, Brain Salad Surgery is a pretty awesome album.

On that note once again, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls is a damn good pianist. But you should already be listening to The Dresden Dolls anyhow.

Getting back to Let It Be, I’m learning about chord inversions. Awesome concept, damn useful, my hand fucking hurts now. It’s a bit of a stretch after doing almost nothing but vanilla major and minor chords.

Similarly, my left hand hurts. The sheet calls for jumping between octaves of the same note, generally the root of the melody’s chords. I’m still wrapping my head around playing rhythm at all, much less stretching my hand over a ten inch span.

In other news, the least prolific cartoonist on the internet is bitching, moaning, and not getting anything drawn. I got some ideas, just not motivated to put pencil to paper. I mean, my keyboard is like right there.

Every so often, I feel the need to climb up on my soapbox and whip my cock out, masturbating to an explosive climax all over the onlookers. Other times I just make a comic wherein I get up on a metaphorical soapbox, which entails much less cleanup. And look at that. I managed to spell “emphysema” right on the first try. Yay me!

Funny thing is, I used to be a rabid anti-smoker in high school. To my knowledge, that bit about menthols was and still is true. You’d think it would deter me…

EDIT: Comments disabled because the spambots seem to have latched on to this post in particular. Not that the availability of comments makes a difference around here.

I really ought to get new batteries for my camera. Or better yet, a new camera, Sony’s motto for cameras seems to be “eh, it’s good enough.” Wish I’d remembered to steal Jerry’s while he was here. (Incidentally, third one down is my mom. That’s not a trick of perspective, she really is that tiny.)

Anyhow, this cost me money to email to myself from my phone. More money than it costs to make a phone call, in fact. Gotta love a cameraphone without a damn USB plug.

True story. There is a button on my Yamaha that turns off velocity sensitivity¹ in the keys. I drew this on a scrap of bristol I had lying around, thus putting in more work than I have in weeks.

I’m trying to teach myself to play at least passably, solely so I don’t embarrass myself when I go to Guitar Center to see if they have a JUNO-G set up for demo. (You should see the keyboard rooms, there’s enough keyboards there to assemble four or five elephants.² It’s more of a formality than anything else, as I’m pretty sure I’ll like the keyboard, but I’d still rather try it out before spending a thousand fucking dollars on one. The nerve.

¹ If you’re not a keyboard nerd, that just means the piano knows how hard you hit the keys and adjusts the sound accordingly. In the case of my Yamaha, it only affects the volume³ but it’s still something that I’d rather not have turned off. Once you get used to it, it’s downright eerie not to have it.
² Gather ’round kids, and I’ll tell you a tale. See, back in the day piano keys were made of ivory, which came from shit like elephant tusks. Possibly other things, I don’t know. Of course, it’s impossible to rebuild an elephant just from the ivory, but electric keyboards have plastic keys anyhow, so that joke falls the fuck apart pretty damn quick.
³ Remember, in a piano hitting a key causes a mallet to strike a string, so hitting a key harder changes the character of the sound as well as the volume. The least Yamaha could’ve done was have the piano tweak the attack as well as the volume. And people wonder why I want to buy that Roland.