Giant Squid Drama....

Well, as a few of you might have heard, a couple of researchers (Japanese scientists by the names of Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori) capture live video footage of a real-life giant squid. I'd post the pictures but, quite frankly, they don't look that impressive and only really make sense (due to the lack of scale) to a cephalopod expert. When I heard that they had real video footage of a giant squid I did a quick internet search and found a handful of articles about it. To add meat to the articles, almost all the news agencies also got a statement from renowned "giant squid" expert, Dr. Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University in New Zealand. He's been on a handful of documentaries about the beasts and has (according to what I see online) been trying to capture video footage of an adult giant squid for well over a decade. He's not a terrible guy and I've heard his name mentioned before all of this popped up. I have a secret passion for squids....but only as an artist and horror-movie fanatic. There were a few things Steve said recently that struck me as.....funny. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what I'm reading, but, well, you'll see.

Quote: Dr. O’shea: "From the point of view of the public, who believe this squid is the largest, the meanest, most aggressive squid that we have - it is hugely significant."

Holy crap. Take a good look at that. “From the point of view of the public, who believes ALL THIS TOTALLY WRONG STUFF, it is important.” So while Steve isn’t saying the footage isn’t important, he’s just saying that it’s SEEN as important by the stupid blind masses. Sad truth is he’s kind of right. Giant squid have been “proven” to exist for a while now and the mere fact that someone has video footage doesn’t really “reprove” that. Now, if the squid had been wearing a tuxedo and carrying a meatball sub…THAT would have been ground-shaking. Turns out that yes..it is indeed footage of a giant squid. Still, it’s kind of shitty to call a discovery unimportant and say it backwards so you don’t look like a total dick. Methinks there may be some politics in the cutthroat cephalopod-expert world...otherwise he'd just say it's not a big deal.

Quote: Dr. O’shea: “Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called … race (to film the giant squid) is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life.”

In my mind, all the words the reporter edited out there (…) were curse words. So Dr. O’shea says there was a race to photograph it and that there wasn’t a race to photograph it? Maybe the whole thing isn't a big deal but at the same time a lot of people have invested millions of dollars into getting the footage. He does conclusively state that he’s been consumed with catching one for the past decade. That’s got to be intense and kind of sad at this moment. On a similar note, Dr. O’shea also mentions in the same interview that he captured 17 juvenile giant squid back in 2000 but they all died in captivity. Is it just me or is that a) slightly off topic and b) so much cooler than just having video footage of a giant squid? Hell, Steve’s plan is to capture more babies and grow them in captivity. All I can say is that: “From the point of view of the public, who believe giant squids totally kick ass – it is truly awesome.”

So Dr. O’shea MAY be really pissed as some Japanese researchers and he MAY be growing giant squid in captivity in the near future. I don’t know. It’s still funny to think about:


The worst part is Dr. O’shea’s email address is pretty easy to find online. I WAS going to email him a copy until I took a closer look at his comments and, well, yeah…he kind of comes across as potentially a dick. Potentially. Who knows? It might be because he's being misquoted. It might be that he's bitter/upset about the whole thing. Maybe I will send the thing his way. And then I'll get sued. Or candy. We'll see.
By the way, if you really didn't believe in Giant Squid, then you might want to know that they're common enough that drug lords in Peru use their corpses to smuggle cocaine into Mexico and America. I’m not joking…
Check it out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4016291.stm

Also in fairness to Dr. O’shea, here are the two articles I took the quotes from. Read it and decide for yourself. Personally, I think the quotes HAVE to be out of context. Then again, that “from the view of the public” line was almost insulting.
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_050928_giant_squid.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4288772.stm

Oh and because I got on a “giant squid” painting kick, here’s another I doodle today:

The spelling mistake is intentional. No one in H.P. Lovecraft's universe should be able to spell anything. Ever.
-jared

"who apologizes to Dr. O'Shea but still stands by the fact that some of those quotes spooky somehow"

Confessions of a Total Webwhore

Jared becomes a Drama Queen & gets preachy (You've been warned):

You’re looking at a weekly banner I made for the site a while back, but ended up not using it because I realized that numbers shouldn’t be what this is about…and I didn’t want it to look like that. It still didn’t’ stop me from painting about my site traffic, obviously. I’m still not 100% sure where the people were coming from, but that’s a whole other matter entirely.
I’ve been wanting to rant about this for a while, but have been second-guessing myself out of fear of over dramatizing the whole deal. I think that might still be the case…but I’m going to go ahead anyway.
There needs to be something that’s the equivalent of Web-Catholicism. There needs to be a confession booth for webmasters and webartists to run to purge themselves of sins of the past. Lately I’ve been wanting to poke fun at some of the stuff I’m seeing online…but it would only be hypocritical because I myself did a lot of the same stuff not too long ago. Of course I’ll slip up and web-sin again I’m sure, but like I said: There needs to be a digital confession booth somewhere for stuff like this. Typically you’re just supposed to delete the old posts or the old pages and pretend it didn’t happen. I can’t do that, so here are my web-confessions:
Head Injury Theater is almost two years old now. The first incarnation was just a movie review site (and home of the Death Toll) that lived over at Angelfire. It’s still up for some reason….my own laziness, probably. Anyway, I have to admit that I started reviewing movies because of my intense love for X-Entertainment.com. Like far too many sites out there, I saw something that I liked and said: “Hey, I could do that!” That’s a sin, I think. Of course I lost interest in doing it a few months down the road. A year later, I accidentally found out people liked my doodles and I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in about 6 years. Thus Head Injury Theater was born, as the two of you who read the site know it today. (On a related note I put a link to X-E on the site this week.)
I have a lot of trouble not bashing the crap out of my site. I think it has something to do with its inherent amateur quality or just the fact that I don’t know much about how a site SHOULD be run, only what I like.
Further Confessions:
I have joined 2 forums with the only intention of pimping my website. Yes, I was one of THOSE guys. I think the worst part is that I pimped myself a while back and, at the time, I thought my stuff was good. Compared to what I’m making now..it’s kinda crappy. In a year from now the stuff that I post tomorrow will look like poo as well.
I started a forum because, for some reason, I thought that was a good idea. Despite the fact that they’re terribly common, not every site needs a community directly created for it. :sigh:
I have googled my own name on numerous occasions to see what people might be saying about me. By “numerous” I mean far far too regularly.
I’ve watched my Hit-Counter/Web statistics like a hawk. What the hell is wrong with me?
Oh, and I started a Blog. I hate Blogs. Why does EVERYONE have to have a blog?

So what’s my problem and why am I writing this? I think it has something to do with the fact that, thanks to the internet, one’s popularity and reach can actually be measured in exact figures. Websites get ranked and distinct visitors get tallied. So, sensitive artists types sometimes NEED to see that people are watching to be motivated. Just take a look at the bajillion websites out there that are defunct out of lack of interest: They were started not necessarily for the sake of creating something but for the sake of gathering an audience...or something. Link exchanges, voting lists, and all sorts of nutty things go on all the time just so that a site can get a bit more exposure....which is necessary for a lot of people.
Just so we’re clear: All that’s mentioned here aren’t really sins. So if you’ve got a site of your own and you’ve link-swapped like crazy or put a half-dozen VOTE buttons on it: Whatever works. Chances are your site is infinitely better than whatever I put up here. I just feel I need to fess up to this stuff before I’m allowed to start making fun of it. It’s kind of a benefit to not really being that involved or aware of what’s going on in the webcomic world. I’m so out of the loop…which might actually be good when it comes to sorting out why I post on the site.
The site is just to entertain myself and others. It’s really a portfolio but, quite frankly, it updates too much and has too much damn content for me to keep calling it that.
This is the most preachy I’ll get, but I had a long talk with a few people and realized I really did need to visit a web-confessional and clean the slate. If you want to know what literally inspired this, take a look at Blank Label’s Telethon and try to count the entries that are comics where the punchline is “Hey, if I make a comic about Katrina I get lots of free advertising!” I know I’m naïve and shouldn’t be throwing that particular stone because I HAVE gotten a lot of exposure thanks to the Katrina cartoons. :shrug:

Now I’m off to draw a dozen “Hail Mary’s” and, with a clear conscience, start to digitally sin all over again.
-jared
“Who would like to apologize for this post as well as the pretentious bastard that he was back in spring”

Comic Correction: Corpse Bride

As a few of you might know, I posted the following cartoon on the website a little over a month ago:

While I think most of you got the joke, a few people were quick to complain/correct me. These, shall we say...vocal few, wanted to make sure that I knew that "The Corpse Bride" was a classic Russian folktale and that Tim Burton didn't come up with it at all. So I got a few angry emails making sure that I knew that I'd made a mistake and that Mr. Burton shouldn't be given credit falsely. As such, for the sake of diplomacy, I would like to resubmit my former cartoon as I have redrawn it to be 100% more accurate and to please the people who were concerned about Russians not getting acknowledged. Enjoy:

Don't blame me. All I did was make it more accurate, according to the literature major who has a deep love and respect for Russian folklore, and wanted to make sure it got the credit it deserved. I hope they're happy.

-jared

German Advertisement: The Bunnies

I had an interesting adventure traveling in Berlin this weekend. By "interesting" I mean that the whole thing totally sucked something terrible. Before I get into that let me share something I saw while traveling:

Not that unusual, right? Women set up in sexy poses is nothing new, certainly. But take a closer look. What's that in the background?

If you said: "Hey, those are bunnies screwing each other!" then you would be correct. While I've been out of the states for a while now, I really don't know if this would fly in America. I mean, seriously. Wouldn't someone be offended by the fact that there are bunnies humping each other all over the poster? By the way, this poster isn't just in one or even a few places.....It is EVERYWHERE. Every train stop, every revolving advertisement stand (it's a Berlin thing)....and, well, you'll see.
Billboards are illegal in Berlin (as they are in some cities in America). The way companies get around this is by renting "wall space" so they can just put a sign on the side of a building. It's most often done when a piece of architecture is getting renovated, so you don't see the gutted building beneath. Hell, I saw a church with a Nike ad running up and down the length of it. Gah.
Anyway, I was talking about the fug-bunnies.
There is something very, very special when you can look up and see four flights of giant fugging bunnies.


Berlin is so random/cool sometimes.

I don't usually tell too personal Livejournaly stuff here but since it actually annoyed me: On Saturday I went on an adventure to fetch authentic American food. It's not a big deal but once a month we crave something from our homeland. Sadly, that means KFC, Pizza Hut, or just Burger King. (Kind of makes you sad to realize those ARE the local colors of food in America.) You can only get this in a few places in Berlin so I hopped on a few trains and headed to Europa Center (the big mall the Allied forces left here in Berlin). Successful in my quest, I tried to get on the buses...only the buses weren't running. I ended up taking a taxi....until we hit a roadblock. After walking around it I found another taxi.....and another roadblock. What was going on?

All I will say is that Rollerbladers need to die. I don't know what the benefit/marathon was for, but ALL Saturday public transportation was brought to its knees by a rollerblader marathon that bisected the city in a dozen different places. Walking home sucks in a big city that relies on public transportation. Does the same thing happen in NYC? Does an entire city stop its buses from running so that a marathon can happen all day?
Berlin is a city that you don't need a car in because public transportation is awesome....faster than driving most of the time. That all depends on it running though. Bah.
-jared

Random Ego Boost.....

I'm not sure how to address this, but apparently the random comics I did for the Katrina Telethon made an impression on some people. Being one of the few participants mentioned out of the hundreds of people who took part is more than flattering. The guys behind Digital Strips mention me by name (you have no idea how weird it is to hear total strangers saying your name) and Brad Guigar himself mentions me again later in the interview. All in all it's a nice ego boost...considering how I'm positively tech-stupid and web design-poor. I guess just being funny sometimes is worth something. Maybe. I don't know. I DO know I don't take compliments well. I think it has something to do with balancing the whole "OMG this makes me feel really great" with "tooting your own horn far too loudly." Stupid internet and its lack of tone.

Either way, check out their Telethon Wrap-up show here:

http://www.digitalstrips.com/2005/09/podcast-digital-strips-show-38.html

I will say that it's totally awesome to actually hear people laughing at your comics. Go Podcasting.

-jared

"who thinks he might try too hard to not seem like a dick to compensate for the sheer volume of complete bastards he sees on the Internet."

Edit Update:

The Webcomic Hurricane Relief Telethon BOOK finally became available for sale today. It's kind of subtle but if you look closely enouch, you should be able to sort of spot my stuff on the Book's cover. Again, sort of flattering....I'm just glad the telethon went well.

Check it out: www.webcomictelethon.com

Grand Theft Auto: THE MOVIE

The Film industry is so funny sometimes. If one thing becomes insanely popular a dozen spin-offs float to the surface (think of all the Jurassic Park clones that came out in the mid-90). Still, it's easier to market a new product clone or spin-off than it is to REmarket an older thing. Take the whole "Ringu/The Ring" franchise. Due to its success a myriad of other Japanese films are being remade (since Japan is the only country really innovating in Horror these days) and brought to American audiences. They'll go to all that trouble, but no one goes to the trouble to re-introduce all those other "Killer Videotape" movies (like Remote Control for example). :shrug: Maybe it's because the older movies suck. Then again, with all the Cover Fu going on in DVD discount bins or just at Blockbuster these days, I'm surprised there aren't more movies being remarketed to trick people into thinking that they have something to do with whatever's actually popular. There is one exception that's been showing up more and more on shelves and had its artwork totally retooled so that you'll be tricked if not slightly tempted to pick it up.
Of course I'm talking about Ron Howard's 1977 film, Grand Theft Auto. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably hear about the moral bankrupt game series (which totally rocks if only for it's ability to kill Police Officers and crash their stolen patrol cars in slow-motion).
So what did the distributor of this film do? Besides finally releasing the film on DVD, they manipulated the cover art to match Rockstar's game and even designed their DVD menu to look like the video game. So with visions of crime sprees and running over pedestrians with stolen cars, what does this film deliver?

I am sad to report that at no point in this film does Opie (Ron Howard, the director and goofy young actor) start killing cops and picking up hookers before doing missions for the Mafia. :sigh: Those are our heros up there, by the way. Not exactly the "hardcore criminals' we Grand Theft Auto fans are used to. Not at ALL.
The whole film's just a young couple eloping (because everyone knows how the ladies can't resist the sexual energy of Opie) in the girl's father's Rolls Royce while everyone tries to stop them from getting to Las Vegas (where they plan to marry). There is a priest that tries to run people off the road "in the name of Jesus" and there's even a very unofficial cameo by Cheech and Chong (who are implied to be trying to run Opie off the road). You'd think a film featuring in-bred hillbillies throwing dynamite at Opie couldn't be all bad, but the whole thing comes across as a very very bad episode of Dukes of Hazard. On the bizarre side, it would seem that in 1977 the only black people in California were house servants because there aren't any (if memory serves) African Americans anywhere to be seen outside of maid and butler uniforms. I won't judge Opie too harshly though...after all the whole "Affirmative Action In Film" thing (you know: the whole "Black guy dies first" cliché) hadn't really kicked into high gear yet.
All in all, I feel profoundly cheated that a film starring Opie on the run is being repackaged to look like it has something to do with the one of my favorite video games.
-jared

On a side note, despite the fact that he's directed everything from Willow to Cocoon to Cinderella Man, Ron Howard will still always be Opie. I'm not exactly sure why.
By the way, wasn't it hilarious that when the drama Cinderella Man debuted in theaters, Russell Crowe gets arrested for assaulting a hotel clerk with a telephone? It might be hard to sympathize with a film character's plight when the actor playing that character is all over the papers being documented as an unstable nutjob who likes inflicting facial injuries when things don't go his way. Bah.

Running Silent....

Just so you know, the reason the Blog's been more silent than usual is that I've had a houseguest for the past week or so. The whole thing's been a blast, what with me playing "Berlin Tour Guide" all over the place and I will be putting together an illustrated guide to Berlin (or at least have an excuse to draw some of the less charming but funny crap that goes on in this city). I've been a busy monkey...or something like that. It's seriously messing with the whole nocturnal routine I had going on.

Next week I kick my houseguest the hell out of here and life returns to normal. So until then, enjoy a random doodle that I haven't posted on the main site because you never know who wants to sue you. (Or it just isn't that funny):

By the way, if you're one of the sickos that enjoyed the "Nightmare Fuel" page, be on the lookout: Part of my recent tour of Berlin included my first trip to the "Erotic Museum" of Berlin. You have no idea how traumatizing it is to look at pornography from the dawn of man in a museum environment. Still, it did teach me that the Japanese have been kinky little bastards for a very, very, very long time. I hate to say it, but the Nightmare Fuel section is going to be getting its first article soon. I don't know if that's a good thing.

Talk to you guys later,

jared

P.S.: The Webcomic Telethon thing is over and, with all the last-minute participants, ended up being a much bigger thing than what was expected. While the $34,000 goal wasn't reached (that's the amount that webcomics raised so that some comic-convention could still continue), you really have to blame the fact that EVERYONE has been taking donations for the Red Cross over the past two weeks and the sheer fact that a bunch of webcomic folks (plus tiny people like me) had a part in raising over $28,000 is still pretty grand.

The telethon did introduce me to the "Webcomic Industry" or the community or whatever the hell you want to call it. More on that later....all the weird/good/terrible/tacky/awesome crap that I've been exposed to over the past week or so needs time to digest.

Won't you be my Neighbor?

Last night we had a party and people started sharing horrible neighbor/roommate stories and someone pointed out I had a few that were worth sharing. Since the Blog's all about mini-articles, I figured this would be the best place to share the horror of those that have lived adjacent to me over the past few years.

Neighbor #1:

The Tourette's syndrome Hooker.
Seriously. When we moved in, her boyfriend (later we would find out he was her pimp) came over to warn us about her Tourette's. "She says some crazy shit sometimes. It's all good though." To be fair, I only saw her a couple of times....though I did hear her in the parking lot a good amount. Luckily the walls of our building were about 3 feet thick and made of concrete...so it we (luckily) never had to listen to what was going on next door. What I did see was her clientele...because they kept ringing our doorbell instead of hers. Apparently the blue light bulb we used to let our friends know which apartment was ours attracted lonely men like a moth to the flame. I'd open the door and a very shady looking guy would look me up and down and say "Never mind."
Neighbor #2:

The Ghetto Brothel.
Again, I'm serious here. After our Tourette ’s syndrome Prostitute moved out all was well in the world....until a few months past and I came home to an interesting sight. There, on the neighbor’s porch next to me, was a voluptuous black woman in a thong and corset drinking lemonade. I wasn't sure what to think. Every few days it'd be a different girl sitting there waving at cars as they drove by (our apartments all faced a busy road). Then at night people would be coming and going....it was pretty obvious what was going on there.
Now we fast-forward a month or so ahead....I'm sitting in our living room reading a book when I hear some sort of muffled noise. After searching the apartment it dawned upon me that I was somehow, through the 3 feet of concrete, hearing what was happening in the young ladies' apartment. While I tried to be more cultured than I am, but I admit that I broke down and put my ear to the wall...just to try to understand what the hell I was hearing. I heard one phrase chanted over and over again by what sounded like 4-5 men. "In the Ass! Yeah! In. The. Ass. Whoo-Hoo!
Gah. Apparently that scene from "Requiem for a Dream" was being shot next door. Jesus.

Eventually I moved to upstate New York. There I would be introduced to yet another charming breed of neighbor.

Neighbor #3: The Care of the State Psycho Lady with her 5 kids that she could only see on Weekends, because she was, after all, insane.
I don't really know how to summarize how terrible this lady was. Imagine this: A woman lives upstairs with her friend. She tells you that she was a nurse until she was given forced disability due to a mental breakdown. Her friend, who lives with her, met her through a chatroom about mental health because she too has problems. Not too scary right? Between the two of them, they had a total of 8 kids...that would all visit us them on the weekends. Combine this with the fact that they lived above us and the ceiling was so thin we could hear everything they did (which was usually yell at each other and the kids). Also throw in the fact that one of them was dating a cop that would routinely threaten my lover whenever I wasn't around and you KNOW this was a wonderful place to live. Luckily they got evicted due to trying to pay the landlord in cat skulls or something and all was well for a while.

Then we moved to Berlin, Germany.
Meet Neighbor #4:

The Evil German.
Now I want you to know that I drew Baronet (a scary name as well) as a Nazi not because he's a German but because he's an evil German that, until recently, kept telling us Americans to go home so that Germany could be more pure. Besides that he'd make "I'm going to cut out your tongue" or "I'm going to slit your throat" gestures. Eventually we wrote to our landlord who we found out was pretty ashamed to have an elderly German harassing the crap out of us. Since then we haven't had a problem with him. Not directly. Until last night.
Long story short: We think that we might have been making too much noise in our apartment because he shot a firearm into the tree next to our window and started screaming at us. For real.

So.... in case they find my body in a ditch riddled with bullets....you know who the police should be looking for.
-jared

(Who really enjoys Germany minus that spooky bastard who lives upstairs)

Agatha Christie will offend you...

From the days of political incorrectness (you know, the days when racism was something popular to practice), I've got something to share. However, I'm going to have to type a word that I can't say. A word that I hate because of all the crap associated with it. It's a word that no white man or woman has any business saying. Give me a second and just don't be offended by reading the word because, quite frankly, I'm just quoting someone else.
Who am I going to quote?

None other than Agatha Christie.

A LOT of you have probably seen a movie version, play, or even read the story entitled "And Then There Were None," more commonly known as "Ten Little Indians." I think I read the story when I was on that "Hardy Boys Mystery" phase somewhere around the 4th grade....a lot of people did. I saw a production of it years later on stage in Jacksonville...and saw a movie version directed by George Pollock. Point is, it's one of the most common, popular, and well-recognized works by dear sweet Agatha.
But the title "Ten Little Indians" was NOT the original title. When Agatha Christie wrote the book in 1939, she originally called it (deep breath):

"Ten Little Niggers"

O_O
Sweet mother of Christ. I wanted to think that was just what she submitted the story as and her editors quickly changed it to not be completely awful....but no. Not only did they publish the story "Ten Little Niggers" with multiple editions, they even illustrated the book covers. The first one isn't so bad (relatively speaking):

Upon closer inspection, I think I see two people with spears and one....is that a watermelon that one is eating? Also pay no mind to the giant WHITE hand. Gah.
Here's the "more offensive one", if you can believe that:

While the bloody iguana is more than a little distracting, it really can't help you NOT notice the guy lynched on the book's cover. Man.
Why, Agatha, why?

It's so weird to find out that one of your favorite books as a kid was originally something like....THIS. :sigh:
-jared

Update, September 11th: The love of my life was playing around with my Blogger account and MAY have accidentally suppressed this post by saving it as draft. She doesn't remember how she saved it after editing....that's what I get for leaving my Blogger account open when I leave the computer. If, for some reason, reporting such stuff like this is against Blogger's policies and it was OFFICIALLY supressed then I'm really sorry for putting it back up. Since I didn't get an email telling me not to point out Agatha using the N word, I can only assume the mistake was on my end.

You want Fries with that Shake?

Jared brings you the News (which was brought by AOL):

Mickey D's Wants to make workers 'phat'?
Report says McDonald's had asked Tommy Hilfiger, P. Diddy, among others, for a 'uniform' makeover.
"...According to industry publication AdAge.com, the world's largest fast-food company is interested in recruiting fashion moguls Russell Simmons, P. Diddy and Tommy Hilfiger, among others, to transform employees' mundane uniforms into hip street wear....As the world's largest employer of high school and college students, the fashion makeover for the roughly 30,000 McDonald's employees affected could cost up to $80 million, the report said. The idea is to turn employees into walking brand billboards as they circulate among their peers, the report said...."

:blink blink:
For the love of all that is holy, McDonalds is trying to get their new uniforms to be designed by a Puff Daddy? Maybe I've been out of the states for too long but I have a serious issue taking anyone calling themselves "P-Diddy" seriously, no matter how much money they have. What's my hip-hop name? J-Hiddy? (Also let it be known that Jennifer Lopez will never be J-Lo. That's just retarded. That would make my name "J-Hi." Gah.) I digress. There are two major issues here:
1. "We want to turn our employees into a walking billboard." :shudder: You know, it's only a matter of time until we can sell our visages to corporations for money or something like that. I'm happy that there's a company that admits that their uniforms suck ass but when they have this kind of mentality, I'm not sure that I'm looking forward to the new uniforms. Speaking of new uniforms....
2. I really can't imagine what kind of uniform Puff Daddy (I really have a lot of trouble typing P-Diddy) would design for the McDonald's (now known as Mc-Diddy's) workers on the go. What the hell am I saying? Of course I know what he'd design:

Are you ready for some hot Mc-Diddy Flygirl action? Somehow I can just picture Ronald McDonald hopping out in baggy pants and a big gold Golden Arch around his neck on a thick gold chain. "My name's R-McDiddy, fools! Do you believe in Magic, bitznach's?"
I'm just seriously wondering how far McDonalds is going to "revamp" (and not urbanize, no never that) their style?
Of course I'm just making fun of urban "bling-bling" D-Piddy (Duff Paddy?) being courted as a designer. I can equally make fun of the Fubu, Tommy Hilfiger, and Abercrombie & Fitch....each of them somehow melt my brain as designing the new uniform...each for their own reasons. I just chose to focus on Puffy D because, quite frankly, making fun of Duffy P is the "kicking a cripple" of comedy. It's too easy somehow.
(For the full news article go here: http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/05/news/fortune500/mcdonalds_uniforms/index.htm )

Special Pointless Rambling Message from Jared:
I'll admit the website's getting to be a little schizophrenic. From weird art to comics to movies to opera to porn....I never really know what to update (or, in the case of the Nightmare fuel section, I don't want to update too much or people will think I'm a sick bastard or something). As a few of you might know, I use AOL. I've had the same account for almost a decade now which is nice. AOL takes care of my spam for me but beyond that: I admit that AOL sucks absolute testicles. This is NEVER clearer as when you log in and AOL gives you the latest "news". Sometimes it's important stuff but usually it's just the super trivial. Even better, when the server has problems logging in, the pictures that are displayed don't synch up to the articles. So while I'm reading the headline "Michael Jackson Goes to Trial", I'm looking at a picture of a grasshopper. Sometimes it's funny though most of the time it's completely retarded.
AOL news is so goofy and trite that I could dedicate an entire section of the site to making fun of it. (Keep an eye out for next week's cartoon which was inspired by the whole "OMG Angelina Jolie adopted a starving Ethiopian" mediafest.) I guess the point is that if I ever updated this site daily, it would have to be in response to current events or something. Or not. Anywhoooooo.

Watch your self and keep an eye out for any Mc-Diddy Flygirls.
-jared

Update: You know, it's so obvious that I'm out of touch with American culture these days when I don't realize how much the word "Diddy" has been accepted (or something like that). AOL news had this up today as one of it's "Headlines":

When Americans think about running a record label everyone thinks of P. Diddy? And here I thought he was just another musician with too much money. I AM out of touch.

By the way, I take it saying "Who's Your Diddy?" is all the rage now too?

Update (the very next day...)

I guess Mr. D-Piddy isn't as totally relevant as whoever writes AOL's stupid headlines thought. Oh well.

I still think asking your lover "Who's Your Diddy?" is funny if not obnoxious as hell.

On Not being a complete bastard....

I'm terrible at plugging things but I just wanted to tell anyone who checks out the site that I'll be participating in a webcomic fundraiser where the funds go to help folks affected by Katrina. Maybe I'm trying to karmically pay for the comic below or all those puppies in my crawlspace. I'm not sure.

All I can say is that it's my good deed for the day. They'll be using another "Katrina-Centric" comic I made (not the Goth one beneath) and I won't be posting it on my site until after the telethon in the sheer hope that the two members of my audience might head over there and be brainwashed into giving money. At the very least it should be sort of entertaining...

Anyway the page is found here:

http://www.webcomictelethon.com/

They gave me this cute little banner as well, but to be honest I'm going to have to paint my own (for the main page) this weekend because a few of you might know my feelings on banners. Or you might not. Watch next week's title banner for it.

Anyway here's the magical photoshop banner they gave me to promote the whole deal:

Isn't it shiny?

-jared

"who is still probably going to Hell"

Update: I just found out that my Aunt Melanie from New Orleans is alive, well-fed, and completely UNVIOLATED! Rock on. :relief:

New Orleans Goth Drama....

Notice: Jared apologizies to all that are about to be offended and swears he's not a completely horrible person. Somehow.

To be honest, I'm so torn as to whether I should post this or not. It's got a lot to do with me making light of horrible horrible things as a way of dealing with them.
I probably shouldn't because I have the sneaking suspicion that the news coverage of the whole thing is probably infinitely more morbid and intense in America right now than the news I'm getting online these days. That said, I think I HAVE to post this or I'll regret it later.

Part of my running this site is posting almost everything that I doodle, so that at least SOMEONE is entertained by at least a part of it. With that in mind, I'm about to post something that will piss off some, but I'm sure at least one person out there will get a really morbid kick out of it.

For better or for worse, here it is:

Don't completely hate me. I doodled this and my friends pressured me into posting it. Blame THEM.

Here's my logic. I don't know a lot about New Orleans. I do know that a big part of the city's been inherently flawed for a very long time by being built below sea level...but that's always been dealt with, despite the obvious. I DO know that New Orleans is one of the Goth capitals of the United States. Maybe it's been glamorized by Anne Rice & Poppy Z. Brite, but in all my experience the most legitimate examples of "Goth Culture" are found in the American South...don't ask me why. I lost all faith in the New York goth scene when I kept hearing the Star Wars techno remix every time I went to the club. I digress. Point is, New Orleans has a huge goth scene and, well, yeah. There's a joke in there somewhere. It's a terrible joke. But it's there.

That said, I really hope that if you're from New Orleans, you're doing well....and Aunt Melanie: We still haven't heard from you and hope you're doing OK. Really.

-jared

"who is going to hell"