Tuesday, August 30, 2005

CONSTIPATED BY HAIRBALLS!!!!


Poor old Rufus.



Remember that part of Beverly Hills Cop, right before Axel Foley puts the banana in the tail pipe, where Axel and goofy-ass Judge Reinhold and grumpy old Sgt. Taggert are on stakeout? And goofy-ass Judge Reinhold makes the comment that the average person of a certain age has a certain amount of beef stuck in their colon, or intestines, or whatever. Well, $200 dollars later at the vet, it's the same thing with Rufus, only there is a big mass of hair and hairballs plugging things up in her intestines. Suffice to say, nothing the vet gave Rufus has really made any progress, if ya know what I am saying. If things don't get better soon, doc says surgery is even a possibility. Yikes.

Pray for poop!

Extra credit points to anybody who knows what the hell ever happened to Judge Reinhold

Monday, August 29, 2005

Rufus has been throwing up for the last two days

She's been uncharacteristically friendly, too. If this keeps up I'm going to need to take her to the vet.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Layman Movie Review: THE PACIFICER/IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE



My roommate has been screwing with the Netflix queue again. The Pacificer actually was amusing, considering it was written as a live-action cartoon by a nine-year-old with a lead-based-paint sniffing addiction.

On a completely unrelated subject, can anyone recommend a good divorce attorney?

Friday, August 26, 2005

Layman Movie Review: THE RING 2 --STARRING REGGIE!!!



Dude! I was totally there when they filmed this movie. My roommate, the queen of crazy schemes, decided we were going to go camping in Oregon, at some crazy-ass park. She reserved a "yurt," which is, like, a round camp building for hippies.



I can't remember the name of the camp, but it was pretty near "The Ocean," and we hiked to "The Ocean" and there was this 100-something year old ship, the USS Kenneth Cole, that was wrecked on the beach, and all that was left of it was the rusted hull. Pretty cool.

Anyway, the whole time we were hiking around, we were debating getting another cat. We had three females, Bumble Buzz, Batty and Rufus, and it seemed like a male would be nice, preferably a little black male which would look cute next to little noisy black Rufus. We sorta decided we would get another cat when the opportunity presented itself, and just kinda chatted back about that. On the way back to the camp there were all these trucks and movie equipment because, as I said, they were filming The Ring 2 there.

And check this out. We had JUST decided that we would get another kitten sometime soon, and we walked past this trailer that had a sign that said "free kittens." We checked it out, the this poor old family already had a bunch of dogs and a thousand little screaming brats and a bucket full of little sweet kittens, including this sweet little black and white one, who we eventually picked. The people who gave it to us said Reggie (who was not "Reggie" then) was a girl, and I wanted a little boy kitty, cause four females cats and one female roomate under one roof is too much estrogen and craziness and I felt like I needed to even the odds a bit. But, even though we thought Reggie was a girl he melted our hearts with his cuteness and we took him. We ended up leaving early from the campground and drove little Reggie home (we woulnd't learn he was a boy until we took him to the vet, and changed his name accordingly.) Anyway, on the trip home Reggie was so sweet and cute and well-behaved it was unbelievable, pretty much the polar opposite of claustrophobic and noisy pain-in-the-ass Rufus, who you can't even pick up without her going nuts, much less put her in a laundry basket.

Reggie's full name is Reginald James Bucket, in honor of the bucket we pulled him out of, in the Oregon campground where they filled The Ring 2.




POST SCRIPT: As it turns out, we were very lucky to pick out Reggie when we did. Naomi Watts, star of The Ring and The Ring 2, REALLY wanted Reggie as her own kitten, and just missed picking him out of that bucket by, like, 5 minutes. She sent me this profanity-laced email shortly after we returned from Oregon, claiming Reggie was supposed to be her cat, and that she would kill any mother fucker that got between her and Reggie's happiness. Ever since then, you better believe I've been watching my back!

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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

It's time for another... HALL OF H2O HERO



Up-and-coming comic book scribbler John Cassaday at WizardWorld Chicago, enjoying the Icy Cold beverage of his choice.


John draws pretty pictures, don't he?:

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

The Layman Lego Project: Arctic



Oddly, this is my only set from the Arctic line.

Also the Layman Lego Project has been updated.

Just thinking out loud here.


I wonder if it would be legal to call for the assassination of Pat Robertson. It would make the world a better place, y'know.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Layman Movie Review: BRIGHT FUTURE


Dude, I'm so freaking pissed. Clearly I need to kill somebody, it's just a question of who. Sadly, I can't pin this one on my roommate's abyssmal Netflix tastes... this one is totally on me.

To explain: I've wanted to see Bright Future ever since I first heard about it, nine months or so ago. According to what I've read, it's about a suicidal guy who kills his boss, then bequeathes his killer jellyfish to his dim-witted friend, who dumps the jellyfish into the Tokyo waterways, where it totally propagates and, like, takes over Tokyo. I ask you, how in the hell can this NOT be some cool, crazy Japanese HORROR movie?

Well, it's NOT.

It was boring as shit. And moved like frozen molasses. After about 20 minute I switched the DVD to double speed, and 10 minutes later put it on 4x speed, and STILL it took an eternity for anything to happen. It was SOOOOO freakin' boring, a weird incomprehensible meditation on death and the disenfranchisement of youth. BO-ring.

Dammit, why can't anybody make a decent movie about killer jellyfish. Is that really too much to ask?




Upcoming on my Netflix queue:
1. The Pacificer
2. Battle Royale
3. Kung Fu Hustle
4. Hellevator
5. Itchi the Killer
6. Oldboy
7. A Very Long Engagement
8. Dark Water

I'll give a billion dollars to anybody who can guess which movie I did NOT pick.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

8/20/05: 9:14 P.M.=THE GREATEST SINGLE MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE!!!!


Larry's Market on Aurora Ave. in Seattle is selling Aquafina sparkling bottled water for $1.99 a six pack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No blogging for a while

I'm behind on a script.

In the meantime, feast your one good eye on this; my upcoming graphic novel from Oni that I'm doing with Deelightful Dave Dumeer, who's now just a few pages away from completion.


Also, the first video game I helped write comes out this Tuesday. Details soon.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

LOOKIT THE WIDDLE BAY-BAY!!!!!!!!!



So, my roommate's sister had a baby a while ago (making me an uncle.) My roommate's sister and her baby came to vist and my roommate bought a crib on Craig's list for the baby to sleep in. We ended up keeping the crib, 'cause every morning little Reggie likes to curl up in it and pretend he is a sweet little baby kitten again!

'Course, by the look of things, little Reggie ain't so little anymore, is he?

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Here comes another.... HALL OF H2O HERO... UPDATED!!



Dear Mister Rumsfeld,
I know your boy George is too busy giving tax breaks to the rich and oil and energy companies to be able to buy our soldiers body armor and reinforced transportaton, but at the low, low prices of Aquafina Sparkling, how can we afford not to send that revefreshing beverage over to them? I understand it gets pretty hot over there.

Yrs. trly,
Mr. T.M. Layman, Esquire, D.D.S.



Today's blog posting takes a patriotic theme, a we raise a delicious bottle to all those men and women stuck overseas for this bullshit war we are in.

We also dip into the mailbag, to answer a question raised by a curious little blogger who goes by the name of SOUP... OR FRANKENSTEIN?


He ax:
To the universally esteemed and beloved Mr. Layman,

If it were proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a known terrorist drank Aquafina®, would that lessen your enthusiasm for the product?

Follow up: If the answer to the first question is 'no,' what it would take to get you to hate Aquafina®?

I remain forever in awe of your awesome blog,
Fawningly,
SOUP... OR FRANKENSTEIN?


I'm glad you asked this question. The truth is, it is impossible for a terrorist to drink Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavored water, because its purity is so strong it overwhelms all evil. Forget Red Bull giving you wings. As millions of Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavored water drinkers can attest, drinking Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavored water is a magical, transcendent experience. It is so pure and refreshing and delightful that anyone who drinks Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavored water can rise above all the troubles of this mundane, Muggle, mortal world. It's it the closest thing we humans may ever know to making love to an elf. Or a unicorn***. If Osama Bin Laden were to drink Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavored water, it would surely change his world view. No longer would he send his followers to blow shit up with visions of 72 virgins in the afterlife. Instead, they would blow shit up for 72 bottles of Aquafina bottled sparkling "Layman"-Lime or Berry flavor delivered to them, icy cold in the the afterlife.

Have I made my point?


***Not counting the time Tom B. Long glued a sugar cone to a Palomino in a clumsey, desperate act of fantasy fulfillment.



















UPDATE!!!

Hey! Arrowhead flavored sparkling bottled water is pretty good too!

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

OMFFFG: The grossest blog posting in the history of the universe.

SPOILER: I'm not much for blood and gore. I can't even watch Nip/Tuck withouth skipping through the surgery scenes. I don't think I've seen a single Jason movie or Texas Chainsaw or Mike Myers or any of that stuff (I vaugely remember seeing a single Freddy movie, and thinking it was mean spirited.) In short, I don't really go for the gross-out stuff, so this one and only time you have permission to skip over this blog posting and re-read about the evervescent Vera "Abortion is Smile" Drake.

You've been warned.




So...

I've told you before that Bumble Buzz has suffered in the past from cat acne, right? And if you do a google search on "feline acne," you'll find it is fairly common. Anyway, Bumble Buzz had it a couple years ago, really bad, all this big nasty-ass bumps on her chin, and we took her to the vet who explained it was pretty common, and cat's, not having opposably thumbs, can't pop the things, so they just get bigger and fester. So I had to pop Bumble Buzz's big nasty zits on her chin.

I swear.

Anyway, she had another outbreak a year or so ago, but I knew what was up, so I never let it get out of hand. Rufus even got a couple, but fortunately she never broke out too bad. We switched from plastic food bowls to metal, which I'm told does a good job of partially getting rid of the problem.



Anyway, a year or so Batty had a nasty cyst on her head, along with a bad cavity, so when we took her in to get her teeth cleaned and the cavity pulled we had the cyst removed. Mucho, mucho $$$$$.

A while ago my I noticed Bumble Buzz had a weird bump on her tail. It sorta felt like the cyst on Batty's head, and I didnt' feel like pointing it out to my roommate, 'cause she flys off the handle pretty easy when it comes to anything concerning the cats. But she noticed it a while ago, and I figured it was just a matter of time before she made me take ol' Bumble into the vet. Plus, I just bought my new iPod. You ever notice how as soon as you spend a bunch of money something comes up that costs you an additional shitload? Happens every time.



So... this morning my roommate, in a rare moment of petting sweet ol' Bumble, notices the thing on Bumble Buzz's tail is oozing some blood. And there is no putting it off. I need to take her to the vet, and I figure it is gonna cost me a mint.

But I decide to take a look at this thing on her tail... which is now ENORMOUS... the size of a human knuckle.





AND IT WAS A FREAKING GIANT ZIT!!!

On her tail.

And it's been festering and growing for about the last 4 or 6 months.


Cat's don't like you messing with their tails, let alone popping a zit which is the size of a marble. I had to cut the hair around Bumble's tail so I wouldn't have to keep hunting around for it. Then I had to hold her down, which she didn't like, and squeeze all the nasty pus and juice out of the damn thing. It took about 15 minutes, and I got an entire gallon of disgusting cat zit goo out of it.

I swear. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm gonna have nightmares about this for weeks.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Layman Movie Review: RETURN TO VERA DRAKE



First, let me direct you to the very half-hearted apology from my roommate. This movie sat on our DVD cabinet for almost as long as Vera Drake is ancient. That's pretty much what happens when my roommate rents movies, forgetting that at some point we're actually expected to watch this stuff. So, in order to get to my AWESOME movies in the Netlfix cue, I have to suffer through hers. Oh, and suffer I did.

I know I reviewed this already, but that was before watching it. You are living vicariously through me, dear blog-lover, and if I must suffer, so must you. The story, again, is about a thousand year old lady living in prehistoric London, who LOVES to give abortions. She bets a pair of wooden teeth to the only person in London older than her, to see who can race to be the first to give a million abortions. So for the rest of the movie--which is about 5 hours long--she roams the streets of prehistoric London, bowing to whoever she meets and saying "Abortion is smile, comrade, abortion is smile." If a person bows back and replies "abortion is smile" she pulls out this two foot long "Abortionator" and zaps them. After she does this a million times she wins the wooden teeth.

Like I said, the movie went on for about five hours. It is shamelessly pro-abortion, and by about halfway through, I wished I could have an abortion. And by the fifth hour, I wished I had been aborted myself.

Vera Drake, ladies and gentlemen. Abortion is smile.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Clown on the balcony

DSCN1210

Batty is hamming it up, as usual.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Meet the newest addition to the Layman family



Turns out my three year old 3rd generation iPod simply sucked ass. And I had no idea that 60 gig photo iPods were down to $399, so I picked it up, along with $59 Applecare to cover my ass for the next 2 years no questions asked.

So now I can put my 3200+ songs on again, along with all my kitty and lego pictures and still have room for, like, a BILLION songs.

YAY!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Today we debut a BRILLIANT new feature: Hall of H20 Heroes

It's not just me who has a great love for Aquafina Sparkling "Layman"-Lime bottled water. Many other admirable people and big-time celebrities and super-stars also enjoy this refreshing beverage. Today we debut an outstanding new feature: H20 HEROES, featuring people of note enjoying fine Aquafina beverages.



First up, Mercedes McNab, spotted at Chicago Comic Con this past weekend. Apologies for the lack of focus. I was quivering in awe from Mercedes' performance as Harmony the Vampire Secretary from series Angel, as well as her fine and entertaining work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.






iPod update: So far bands beginning with letteres A-I are working. I'll load up more tonight and keep you posted! At least I can still enjoy the dope rhymes of Ice-T, mother fuckers!

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

On sale today / Dude, WTF?!?!?

The good news: The second-printing of my House of M: FF#1 came out today, with a cool variant cover.


The bad news: my local comic book store actually had the nerve to try to charge me $25 for it because it is a limited edition. Outrageous!




We now return to my regularly scheduled bitching about my iPod. Currently, I have deleted album art and reinstalled all songs beginning with letters A through C (565 songs, primarily Alice Donut, The Cramps, Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill.) So far, everything is working just fine, which means whatever is corrupt, is between letters D through Z. Will update, as I am sure is as earth-shattering important to you as it is to me.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Oh, Lord! Why hath you foresakeneth my iPodeth?



Well, crap. Surely this is some cosmic karmic comeuppence for my insensitive blog remarks about the bloated corpse of Natalee Holloway (though, to be honest, my real complaint is the media's very dishonest obsession with her,) but nonetheless, my iPod is fucked. It crapped out on me in Chicago, freezing up and then all 3200-something songs were gone. I've since uploaded all my music from my external back-up drive to iTunes, and then to the iPod. And it is STILL freezing between songs, skipping songs, and generally fucking up.

Here's a some background. Something like this happened about 9 months ago. At the time, I only had about 1200 songs, and I went through album by album, dumping and reinstalling albums until it worked. It took HOURS AND HOURS. Now that I have 3200-something songs, this is the last thing I want to do.

The worst part is I own all my music. I have a vast CD collection, from my days as a DJ, my time as a record reviewer, and just being a collector in general. Out of 3200, only about 12 songs are NOT store bought.

I'm at my wit's end. I've got the latest firmware and software updates. I've tried resetting. I've erase the iPod and put all my old music (old music which was working FINE until last Friday) onto the iPod again. I have no idea what to do. My buddy Neals says that maybe I put a corrupted JPEGS onto album artwork, but I haven't added album art in ages to the iPod (for fear that is what did me in last time.) Neal also said that maybe some multimedia stuff (CDs with quicktime videos or whatever) somehow got in there and screwed that up. But, as far as I know, there is no equivalent to Norton Utilities for the iPod. So what the hell am I to do?

Should anybody have ANY idea what to do, I'd be very appreciative. Send you some comic books or something. However, DON'T tell me to reimport all of my CDs, because that simply is not going to happen. Also, I don't think getting a new iPod would really help, because I am convinced the problem is with the files within the iPod (oh yeah, my iPod is third generation--you don't think that makes a difference, do you?)

Monday, August 08, 2005

Dammit!!!!!!!



My iPod died in Chicago. Had to reformat the whole damn thing, which means I had to erase every one of my 3000-plus songs. The good news is I backed up to an external hard drive just a week or so ago (I keep my music seperate from my music's so hard-rockin' awesomeness does not mix with punk-ass wussified lameness.) Anyway, I WILL be able to get my iPod up and running again, it's just a bit of a pain in the ass.

And I'm not sure what is doing it. Part of me suspects my Pink Floyd Momentary Lapse in Reason CD corrupts my iPod, as this has happened before. All my music is storebought and from CD (that is, legal.) So why the hell does my iPod keep effing up every nine months or so?

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Layman at Chicago Con

So probably no blogging for a couple of days. Here's a picture of Rufus and Batty to hold you over until then.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I like every song on this album



In fact, I pretty much like every song by this band. They are like the Ramones, if the Ramones were acted like dorks instead of thugs.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

URGENT NEWS FLASH: Natalee Holloway STILL dead!


Jesus Christ. I made the mistake of flipping around the news channel while eating my dinner. It's been more than two months since that lame bitch disappeared in Aruba, and Joe Scarborough, Greta Van Susten and Nancy Grace are STILL interviewing relatives and "reporting" on the story. Once again, as if she was the most important person on the face of the planet, and our very civilization hinges on solving the mystery of her fate.

Kinda makes you wonder what the world would be like if they devoted this sort of attention to the dozens of people who die daily, and hundreds of people who die weekly, in Iraq.

And, y'know, I wanna say I feel sorry for the family, but I keep seeing these those miserable bastards on the TV, quintessintial Ugly American shitheels ranting against Aruba's incompetent primitive justice system, and I just can't feel bad for them at all. Hell, if was Natalee and I had relatives like that, I'd have killed myself to.

The Layman Lego Project: The Pigs, man!

In honor of the much beloved The Layman Lego Project, which has recently been archived, we are po-leased to offer this new offering.

The Po-Po.

Five-Oh.

Dem bitches what framed O.J.






Monday, August 01, 2005

REJOICE! --at the blog that just keeps getting better



The Layman Lego Project, which continues to be our most popular feature, has now been archived... here.

Up next... the Layman Backlist Project --scanning of stuff still in progress.