A treasure

ooooo.

Destroy!

I put up another comic. I noticed that I've only put up five (I think?) comics since I started my stripgenerator account. I don't think it's for lack of ideas; I think it has more to do with the fact that I go through this kind of Choose Your Own Adventure thing with each idea.

If you DECIDE TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT THE IDEA, turn to page 65.

If you WRITE A COMIC STRIP AND FORGET TO TELL ANYBODY, turn to page 24.

If you ARE ONLY GOING TO BLOG ABOUT IT EVEN THOUGH THAT'S KINDA BORING MAYBE, turn to page 112.

If you TRY TO BRING IT UP IN CONVERSATION SO AS TO IMPRESS AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN-TYPE, stop reading Choose Your Own Adventure, dude--it STARTED being uncool in fourth grade.

If you PAINT A PICTURE OF THE IDEA, learn how to art first, duh. (P.S.: Can you place the "duh" in that clause anywhere else besides the end? "...learn how to art, duh, first." "learn how to, duh, split infinitives.")

If you BLOW IT OFF AND PLAY VIDEO GAMES INSTEAD, turn to page 32 for the umpteenth time.

destroy

I played this video game recently. To be completely honest, the reason I actually played it all the way through will be clear to anybody who watches 4:30 to about 6:20 and 8:10 to about 9:40 of this video. Again, oh my gaaaashh.

Also, I got a free synth today wooooo

Challenge and fighting

Item the first. The best thing to do when people hand you a flier with the expectation that you'll take it is to take it without looking at them, barely reacting at all besides grabbing it. Then wad it up and stick it in your mouth. Disappear around the corner. (This item is not based on something I did. I promise.)

Item the second. Do you know how people often find their phrase du jour and won't stop using it? For example, overuse of "awesome!" or "need more cowbell." Yeah, it's really annoying and everybody who does such a thing should be shot.

Mine is replacing "is it" with "it is" and vice versa. Maybe you'll like it too!

Destroy

I'm trying an experiment today. "What will happen," said I, "if I stare directly into the souls of the people I walk past today via their eyes?" Well, not too much. I feel mighty, though, because like nobody is brave enough to meet my gaze, even for a split second. NOBODY!!

What experiments do you try, friends?

Also, I've noticed that if I want human contact, most people aren't going to contact me, so I have to initiate everything. This is something I've noted before, and I've accepted it as my lot in life that I'm not the charismatic leader-type, but the notion's been really reinforced lately and it irritates me, making me take out my anger by giving passerby the EVIL EYE, I guess.

However! On the first of November, the band I joined will be performing at a sandwich shop...or I guess they have a more concert hall-type thing next door. Sammy's! In Provo! Be there, aloha.

Destroy.

broseph (the original, from Anchorman)
bro-ham (from Reaper, I think)
brotein
brokaryote (prokaryote; from Ben)
brosephine
brophy (This one actually means "when your brother gets a trophy." From MST3K: "Being from Another Planet.")
broton
jet bropulsion
brofessional athlete
rock 'n' broll
brolo contendere
hybroelectric dam
Broldplay
goin' brostal
Higgs broson
hyperbrole
brobal warming
Ebrola
isobropyl alcohol
Broastal Chill
"Is the Brope Catholic?"

I guess I better pay attention in my GIS class now.

Your song made me say naughty things!

Speaking of "strip," I finally put another one on my Stripgenerator page. I think I'll do another one pretty soon, too.

You always fall for what you desire or what you fear

I was walking on campus and listening to "The Well and the Lighthouse." About the time this line came up, I nearly started to weep.

I want to write music so beautiful that it affects me on that visceral, subconscious level. How?

Also, for sir and madame's consideration

So, last Saturday Andy and I recorded some sweet beats. We wrote, arranged, recorded, and mixed a song in about three hours, which I think is pretty sweet. Listen to "Ashamed of My Game Show" and many other things at his imeem dealie! I'll put the lyrics below because a) it's hard to understand it in the mix and b) I feel like it.

(p.s.: my car broke down, and I didn't get a job. We in the business call this "acquiring songwriting material through life experience." Also, my dog died and my wife turned out to be a killbot.)

"Ashamed of My Game Show" by Prof. Nick Clark and Andy Myers, Attorney at Law
I'm afraid to show my face
My producers called it the national disgrace
Both viewers say "Cut your greasy hair!"
The female guests have to face my inappropriate stare

I'm ashamed of my game show...

I left my wife for my assistant, Denise ("There's no Denise!")
And she left me for some kinda lobster-beast
The prizes cause Lyme disease and Epstein-Barr
And the losers get trapped behind a brick wall

(chorus, including my favorite falsetto backup vocal from Andy, "His game show is a game shame!")

Our money goes to a charity
That takes poor children's lunch money
But for some reason I don't understand
It's huge in Europe, or maybe Japan

Tanks for the memories!

Thanks to the help of the powerful Genuine, I now have a Stripgenerator dealie. Go to it!!!
GO TO IT!!!! Maybe not immediately, though. I only have one strip up.

Thank you, Superman, for teaching us to love...again

Not a comic.

It has come to my attention that I'm moist. Frankly, I don't recall ever being this knowingly moist, perhaps with the exception of the summers I spent in Japan. And when I covered my entire body in flour, yeast and secret hobo spices, it only made things worse as people tried to smother me in gravy, Texas style. Also, the a/c in my aparrrto doesn't really work. Ain't that a drag? Not a J. Edgar Hoover kinda drag, but more of a "I'm going to dump your books and drag you through the mud after gym class, twerp!" kind of drag.

Item!: I cannot tell a lie. My roommates are kinda slobby. As a result, I spend my days fantasizing about how they will someday do their own dishes or at least not culture anthrax and Clostridium botulinum in the half-full bowls they leave around. This is different from my usual fantasies, which, interestingly, also involve flour, yeast and secret hobo spices. (Gross!!) Anyways, sometimes I think about real passive-aggressive ways to handle the problems. I thought I was being really original when I came up with the idea of placing dirty dishes on the bed of he who dirtied them, but this concept apparently originated with the concurrent work of Newton and Leibniz. Thanks for making me creative, MFG 202.

I move back to Orem next month, children. It's been fun living among the bunglers of the urban...ish jungle of Provo, but I think it's time to cut costs and play more Guitar Hero III, so back to Mom's it is!

Update: I forgot to use the word "hobotomy" in this post. I'm truly sorry, everyone.

The continuation!!

I apologize for the explicit violence and frank depictions of sexuality in these next two, entitled "Hired!" and "Hired! Part 2."



P.S.: These are a little old (I drew and wrote them a few weeks ago), and they look weird to me now. Ah, whatever.

First appearance of teeth! And shrugging!

There will be a continuation of this. Oh yes, there will be. ...a continuation of this.

I like this way better.

Numba one.

More (and better) later, I think. This was made with my sister's tablet and Photoshop!! No scanning!!!

Two things.

A: My philosophy of religion teacher showed this today as part of our last class period. Sweet.

B: I will be playing in the Jazz Combos Concert tonight at 7:30 in the hfac, so if any of you could come, it would mean a lot to me.

3: Don't hassle me on the comics. They're being developed...or should I say, harvested from the ocean floor?

To web, or not to comic?

So for a while, I've thought I'd like to try my hand at making a webcomic. It just seems like something that people should try to do before they die. Anyways, I got a few ideas about characters, setting, cheesy gimmicks and so forth, but should I pollute the internet with my crude drawings (not to say that I'm a good comic writer, but that my drawings, rather worse, are classifiable as "caveman-influenced") that 50% of people won't understand, 20% will be offended by, and 5% will see as religious signs and proof of my worship-worthiness? Actually, I like those odds. But what do you think?

Let's swing a mattock and strike pay dirt.

So a few things have become somewhat clearer to me lately.

One is that Mormon theology is really anticreedal, which rankles plenty of people in the classical Christian world. Or rather, critics of the Church tend to think that we hold onto obscure statements that reveal prejudices of prophets, as well as a few less-obscure ones, as creed or doctrine. Turns out this isn't true. Brigham Young had his share of wacky statements, plenty of which I disagree with, a few vehemently. Even though his fiery temperament would lead him to use rhetoric devices that usually frame prophecy and statements of doctrine ("Thus saith the Lord," etc.), only that which is found in the standard works or accepted by the Twelve and the body of the Church upon the President of the Church revealing it. So no matter what Brigham Young says after "The word of the Lord is...", if it isn't taught in the scriptures, if it isn't approved by the entire Twelve, it isn't doctrine. We don't care nearly as much about orthodoxy (with a small core of notable exceptions comprising what the missionaries teach) as we do about orthopraxy. Does it matter if I believe that God is the "master chess player," his omniscience being the result of perfect prediction rather than extensive definite foreknowledge? Does it matter if I think that the black race is inferior (which I don't), so long as I still practice charity toward them? Does it matter if I think that I'll receive a squadron of additional wives upon exaltation? Nope. The Church isn't some Orwellian construct that controls the thoughts of its members, no matter how repulsive, but it does reserve the right to discipline members based on their actions. ...What was my point? Oh yeah, creeds. Except for a relatively small number of things, nobody must believe anything in the Church. So I keep this in mind when I hear things that Brigham Young, Bruce McConkie, or even Joseph Smith said that seem contradictory to the doctrines I know: they were fallible men like the prophets and apostles of the Bible. Does this make them liars? Sure, if you mean "somebody who has lied before"; try to find two people who have never lied, intentionally or otherwise. They make mistakes, they voice opinions as fact, but that doesn't make the Church a mistake.

Also, speaking of mistakes, what happens if a couple divorces? Was the marriage a mistake from the beginning? Few people would vocalize this, but my own experience is that such an irrational belief could worm its way into the subconscious of somebody who comes from a broken home. And let's face it: irrational beliefs are the hardest ones to break, particularly if we want to condemn somebody else as being the "cause" of the precipitating event. So, in talking with somebody recently, I brought this up; and my belief was smashed by an emotionally-charged idea (in other words, an irrational solution to an irrational problem).

Was the marriage that ended in divorce a mistake from the beginning?

Then, how could the mistake be avoided? Not marrying at all? Murder?

Barring those two options, let's say that you enter into the marriage despite it being a mistake by virtue of its eventual end. You move in together and have many happy times, at least for a week (let's say it's a typical marriage in Hollywood). What if you have a child? What if you have children? Are they mistakes?

Am I a mistake?

I sure hope not.