Comics and life and such.

So, yeah. It's looking like "Marv" is going to be updated over the weekend. Friday through Monday, since those are the days I work. I love the Windows XP version of MS Paint. I'm comfortable with it, and I've used it for years. Windows 7 Paint (which is on my home PC), not so much. I do my "best" work from, well, work, so I'll be drawing and writing from here.

Also, there's no X-Box to distract me at work, so I can focus and not get lost in Skyrim or Minecraft or Mass Effect 2...

So, yeah. I've got a "Bro Christmas" tonight with my best friend. We keep trying to find a time and day for "Couples' Christmas" that works for him and his girl, and me and Sweetheart, but it's complicated, so we're just gonna have our manly celebration of awesomeness tonight.

"Bro-stmas"?

"Bro-nukkah"?

No, no. I have it!

"Winter Bro-lstice".

Yup. That's the one. Will be doing that, and then probably just playing vid'ya games for New Years. Sweetheart's got a family game night thing with a friend from High School, and she loves that whole family, so...lonely Joe is lonely.

Lonely Joe, kept warm only by the uncaring glow of his X-Box's pretty pretty lights (which is actually much more awesome than lonely). I think I'll just crank up the volume and get lost in the game. Hopefully I won't be dead at work on Sunday.

Fun stuff...

So, I'm working on making a comic. A webcomic, actually. Not sure if it'll go anywhere, and it'll probably only make sense to me, but I'm getting there. First "strip" will be posted sometime soon. I guess now that I've decided to do something creative, I've gotta sit down and actually do this thing right....Dang it...

So I uploaded the first issue....

http://marv.thecomicseries.com/

Christmasy things.

Happy Put-A-Tree-In-Your-House-Day-Eve!

Also, I may be working overtime tonight and tomorrow, which means that my Christmas stuff is pretty much over with, since everything with the family is planned for tonight and tomorrow night. I hate the holidays, when it comes to getting emergency coverage.

"Sorry, got plans, can't work." says everybody, which means I get to stay at work, because I can't leave (required by law to stay) until I'm properly relieved. If I do, I can be fined and will probably be fired.

So, yeah. Good times.

On the plus side, though, I'll get base pay, plus my Weekend differential, plus my Holiday differential, plus my evening/night shift differential, plus my Overtime pay, which is time and a half. That'll make for a nice paycheck, if the payroll folks don't have a stroke.

Bloggy, bloggy, blarghy, blargh....

So, yeah. I'm at home, as usual for this time of the week (Wednesday night). Played a lot of Arkham Asylum today. It's awesome. Finished reading "14" by JT Ellison.

It's been a while since I've actually been nervous about reading the next book in a series, but "14" does it for me. I'm gonna have to take a day or two before I start "Judas Kiss", just to decompress and absorb "14" in all it's goodness.

UGH! KRINGUS IS ALMOST HERE!!!!

So much Christmasy stuff to do, and Christmasy places to go, and I have to work all weekend....Ugh. I hate this week out of every year. Not a moment's rest to be had anywhere.

Storytime With Joe...

Okay, yall. Time for a tale...

So, four years ago, just after Thanksgiving of 2007, I got together with my Sweetheart. She was a co-worker of my sister, and she'd been to the house a few times. It was love at first sight, honestly. She made sure it was okay with my sister (as did I) that we start dating, and things were awesome at first.

Then, my sister's life kinda went to crap. She quit her job, her husband got fired (or quit, I don't remember), and so neither of them were working for a while. He'd get a new job, keep it for a few weeks, and then loose it or quit. Things were not good at home. The friendship between my Sweetheart and my sister cracked apart, and I kept seeing my Sweetheart.

Things were looking up for me, in general. I had a girl that I loved, and a job that I enjoyed. This pissed my sister off to no end. She and her husband weren't doing too well, and it resulted in her looking elsewhere. Now, I'm not privy to her private life (such as it was), and as such, I don't know what all went on, but I do know that she kept trying to sleep with her boss, and wanted people to watch her infant daughter while she went and did that.

I refused to help with her stepping out on her husband (rather publicly, which was a huge mistake), and as the youth of today say (or so I'm told), "Shit Got Real". My stuff started disappearing out of my room while I was gone to work or out with my Sweetheart. When confronted, I found that some of my stuff (of which my sister's husband had duplicates or similar things) had been sold at the pawn shop for cigarette money and such. I tried putting locks on both my bedroom doors, but the one that led to the shared bathroom was turned around while I was gone, so that the door could be locked from the inside, but not my bedroom. I wound up putting a separate flip lock so that they could lock me out of the bathroom, and I could keep my doors locked.

My mom (rightfully so) chose my sister's side in the fight between her and my Sweetheart, and so with everything going on, my Sweetheart pretty much became unwelcome at the house. So, eventually, I made the choice to move out with my Sweetheart. We moved out, and I stopped speaking to my mom and my sister. Haven't spoken to either of them for the last four years and change.

Well, last night, I had my mom and her husband over for dinner. At my Sweetheart's insistence, I called her last week, and made the invite, because my Sweetheart couldn't stand to marry me, knowing that we'd refused my mom the option of being at her oldest kid's wedding. She and my step-dad came over, and we had some awesome lasagna for dinner.

It was weird for a brief moment, and then we started talking, and it was like nothing had ever happened. We just fell back into that same old rhythm. It went about as well as I could have possibly hoped. I was terrified for a long time, but then everything just mellowed out and went fine. We invited them back, and Mom invited  us (me AND Sweetheart) over to her place. When Sweetheart asked how this'd work with my sister in the picture, my mom said "It's MY house. If she doesn't like it, she can go hide in her room.". So, yeah. Everything went better than expected.

Now I just have to figure out how to fit my mom into the wedding. Up until now (and even now, since I'm not likely to change my plans) my step-mom has been set as Mother Of The Groom. Ugh. I hate complicated family dynamics.....

Interwebz, yay!

So I have internet at the house again. The tech came out yesterday, and reinforced my faith in AT&T's U-Verse staff. He came out and checked everything inside within about ten minutes, and then went right to work outside (where a tech had supposedly checked everything beforehand). An hour later, I had super fast internet active, and he walked me through the set up process (which was pretty self explanatory, but still...). I think U-Verse probably has the best customer service people I've ever experienced. I can't recommend them enough.

Also...

Shot my pistol for the first time yesterday. Shiny.

So, I'm a liar...

Yeah, still no internet at the house. I've got a technician coming to fix it later today, but for now, still nothing. We did, at least, learn the problem and try to rectify it.Our old router's power supply went dead, so we decided to transfer service to AT&T's U-Verse service (which is awesome).

Stupid transferring of service. Lemme tell you how my calls on Tuesday night went.

*****

Me: "My internet isn't working. I've tried resetting the new router, and I've tried multiple ethernet cables, and multiple phone lines, and multiple phone jacks. No such luck."

Super Helpful Tech Support Guy: "Okay, let me check this out right quick for you. Troubleshoot, troubleshoot, troubleshoot...okay. It seems as if the DSL internet you had, for which your router doesn't work, is still occupying the line, so the U-Verse service can't find your new router and offer you our awesome internet service. I'm very sorry about this, but I'm going to connect you to our DSL department, to see if we can't get this resolved. Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

M: "No, Super Helpful Tech Support Guy, you've been awesome and a half today. Thank you."

SHTSG: "No, customer. Thank you."

M: *squee*

DSL Bitch Queen: "AT&T DSL. What?"

M: "Um...excuse me?"

DSLBQ: "What do you want?"

M: "Oh, uh, I'm having problems getting my U-Verse internet to hook up and I-"

DSLBQ: "That's a whole different department. Transferring." *click*

M: "Hm......that was unpleasant."

Next Super Helpful Tech Support Guy (who was actually a gal): "I'm so sorry to hear that you're having difficulties with our service. I apologize for the delay in getting your internets back to you, because I know you love your internets, and I just want you to be happy. Let me transfer you back over to the DSL service. Before I let you go, is there anything else I can do for you today?"

M: "No, Super Helpful Tech Support Guy (who is actually a gal), you've been awesome and a half today. Thank you."

NSHTSG(WWAAG): "No, customer. Thank you."

M: *swoon*


DSL Bitch King: "AT&T DSL."

M: "I'm having problems getting my U-Verse internet to hook up and I-"

DSLBK: "That's a whole different department. Trans-"

M: "AND IT'S APPARENTLY BECAUSE YOUR STUPID DSL IS STILL OCCUPYING MY LINE!"

DSLBK: "Ugh. Okay, 'sir' (I could hear him making the little finger quotes over the phone line, sweartachrist.). Let me take a look......well. Of course it's still on the line. Your disconnect date isn't until the 23rd."

M: "Seriously? Your router craps out (after 4 years of loyal and faithful and nearly flawless service *pets the poor dead router*) and I try to transfer my service to get internet back by upgrading to a better internet service with the same company, and you set my disconnect date for the 23rd so I can't have internet until then?"

DSLBK: "Sir, you set that date."

M: "Bullshit. I set no such thing."

DSLBK: "Well, that's when your next bill is due."

M: "Okay, I'm trying really hard not to kill you through the phone right now. Get your GOD DAMNED DSL OFF MY MOTHER FUCKING LINE!"

DSLBK: "The quickest I can do that is Thursday. Check after 8pm on Thursday."

*****

Okay, so I've been without internet on anything but my phone for almost two weeks now, and I had to call back last night.

Super Helpful Tech Support Guy: "Well, I've done all I can here, so I'm going to go ahead and schedule a technician to come out to see you tomorrow, free of charge, because we feel really bad about you not having internet. Is there anything else I can do to make your night better?"


M: "No, Super Helpful Tech Support Guy, you've been awesome and a half tonight. Thank you."

NSHTSG: "No, customer. Thank you."

*****

So, the moral of the story is that if you have AT&T DSL, switch to U-Verse (not much price difference, none in my case). The customer support aspect of it is totally worth it, even if U-Verse didn't totally kick DSL in the face with awesome.

From the phone...

Like the title says, I'm t typing this from my phone. Maybe this'll help me keep my blogging closer to a daily thing.

Getting my internet at the house not only fixed, but upgraded today. This marks my triumphant return to the interwebz... Assuming the guy shows up for the install. I can't wait.

Writing about Writing...

Ahhhh. Writing. I love writing. The holiday season (or the American holiday season, anyway) tends to get in the way of that. People's schedules rarely link up, and motivation can be an issue at even the best of times. Who wants to sit and type out chapter after chapter in a post-holiday meal coma, when they could just...ya know...not?


I know that getting back on track with my writing (which usually flows fairly easily) has been a nightmare this year (thanks a lot, Skyrim). After Thanksgiving, I had no inspiration whatsoever, and very little motivation to tear myself away from the X-Box or any of the other distractions I had. Also, our internet went down at home, and so the only time I could post would be from work. 


Now, though, my ideas are flowing again, and my fingers have loosened their death grip on my X-Box controller, getting back into the flow of typing. Which is awesome, because I really do love writing. 


I'm going to try to get some poetry written (it's been entirely too long), but I've got no real subject matter that inspires me to write poetry. I can get into character easily, and play my parts, but poetry, which is much harder for me to grasp, is tough. I have a lot of poets (modern day) who inspire me and astound me on a regular basis, but I'm just not a natural poet. *shrugs*


And so, without further ado, the poem that this blog is named for...


Uncapped


My pen on blank paper, no inspired words flow, I don't know, where my muse has to go, to get right back, in my head, and on track, I feel dead in, my bed.

I should write, my rhymes tight, coiled up just right, up the leg of my desk, feel grotesque, across the oak table, feel unstable, watch some cable, no help, I'm unable.

As the words tie me to the chair, pulling out my hair, trying to put words there, on the paper page, takes an Age, or an Aeon.

Like the Flux, I'm a peon, trying to see on, to my destiny, with the rest of me, still stuck abreast of me, making no progress, towards Congress, or anything upwards, just cuss words, flow like a blue river from my lips, with the occasional distracting dip in my girl's hips. 

Blue rivers are all that flow, ink so slow, it could be stone, in my bones, for all the good it does. Paper's still blank not because, there's a lack of trying or crying or screaming or dying.

The words are there, just right in my throat, but I choke, can't think of what I wrote, the last time, it's a crime that this is such a climb through the grime, can't make a dime with these rhymes. I just do it, and push through it, because everyone knew it, one day I'd just explode and blow my lyrical load all over the face of the pages tossed around my abode.

My house ain't a home, I'm alone, with no phone ringing, or birds singing, or people kinging me for my works, how it hurts, I'll go first, and pull this trigger, there's no figure in my bank, so I'll thank, all you people for my rigor. 

Mortis, can't take more of this, it's over, can't adapt, I'm entrapped and I'm apt to have my brain mapped where it's sapped so when the pen goes boom and I've snapped I don't come uncapped.

Music and junk...

So, when it comes to music, I listen to a little bit of everything. Mostly pop/alternative, but with a fair amount of country (I am from Texas, after all) mixed in. Some barbershop quartets, some classical, some "indie" music. Not much rap, but I dig a lot of hip-hop.

I fucking love anything with Carlos Santana, because he's the only guitarist I've ever heard that can make a guitar talk. I know it's said about a lot of guitarists, but he's the only one that I can hear it.

What kills me about my taste in music lately is typified by the country band Lady Antebellum.

For a lot of years (heh, I originally typo'd that into "alot of years" and had a mental flash of a Hyperbole and a Half style alot with a long white beard and a clock) I've listened to very little country music. I grew up with Garth Brooks and Clint Black. Arron Tippin and Vince Gill. John Anderson and Tricia Yearwood. Doug Stone and Reba McEntire. Clay Walker and Rick Trevenio. In the mid-nineties, I moved away from country and more to pop/alternative music, because that's what all my friends were listening to, and to be honest, I was a musical sheep back then.

I didn't really listen to much country music for the next decade. I missed out on the heyday of Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Tracy Lawrence, the early work of Brad Paisley (for which I'm truly sorry, because he's a-freakin'-mazing),  and Blake Shelton.It wasn't until Keith Urban's 2006 release of "Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing" that I bought another primarily country album of any kind.

From then on, I listened with slightly increased regularity to some country music, but didn't really pick it back up until Sugarland's "Baby Girl". I was driving off in the middle of nowhere for some reason late one night, and the song came on, and I was fascinated. I dove back in, and two of my car radio presets became my local country stations.

Now, to Lady Antebellum.

I kind of took pride in the fact (especially when I was in the Army) that I was from Texas, but my tastes in music didn't run towards country. The guys in country music (for the most part) were indistinguishable to me. I couldn't name them based solely on their voices to save my life. Even now, there are songs that I really like (such as Chris Cagle's "What Kinda Gone" that's playing on my Pandora even as I type this), but I can't tell you who sings it.

Then comes in Lady Antebellum (and to a very slightly lesser extent, the Zac Brown Band). I FUCKING LOVE THIS BAND! Every song they come out with, just hits all the right chords in the music part of my brain, and in the music part of my heart. I've become addicted to them.

Also, Kid Rock is fucking not country music.

That is all.

OHMAHGAWDSKAHRIM!!!!

So, yeah. Thanksgiving was awesome and then I got lost in Skyrim, but we'll come back to that in a minute...

Went to dad's place for breakfast on Thanksgiving. Had some badass fajita breakfast tacos and nachos, as is the Kennedy Thanksgiving Tradition. Was shown my Taurus P24/7 .40 caliber pistol. I can't wait to shoot it, but alas, birthday is two weeks away, and Christmas is even further than that. Not sure when I'm getting it, though Dad and my little brother (Monkey) brought over my new gun safe last Monday night. 

Went to my Sweetheart's dad's family's place for lunch, where I was severely disappointed by a pumpkin pie masquerading as a pecan pie. I sliced myself a large, well, slice, and thought 'That certainly doesn't look like pecan pie filling. Oh well, on to deliciousiosity.'. I took a bite, and my dreams were shattered. Pumpkin pie with pecan topping. I was heartbroken. 

See, I loves me some pecan pie. My grandpa used to make it with pecans from his front yard tree, and it was effing magical. 

Anyway, straight from there we went to Dallas, for Thanksgiving weekend with my Sweetheart's mom's family. Thursday consisted of entirely too much food, and finally, at long last, my beloved pecan pie. 

Friday we went and bought me a new X-Box 360 (after several years without) and Skyrim. I could go on for days about how awesome this game is, but I'll just leave it at this; Well played, Bethesda. Well played indeed.

Saturday I saw Immortals with my Sweetheart's dad, and it was just as awesome the second time around. Sunday, we came home, and I got lost in Skyrim for four days. 

Back to work yesterday, and they've managed to fuck up everything in the new expansion project they're doing that has to do with my department. Lawsuits, indecision, and just plain old stupidity are all over the place here, but that's okay, because I get to go home after a long day at work, and see my Sweetheart. 

And maybe play some Skyrim....