imboden.org
pants optional
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So, being a temp I don’t truly fit in here. Maybe it’s because the actual employees realize I’ll be gone one morning. Or, maybe it’s because they’re all women (with a couple of gay men thrown in for good measure). Whatever the reason, I’m lucky to get a "Hello smile" when walking past most of them. As a result of this, I don’t know many names and can only tell them apart by physical features or mannerisms. And truth be told, this is fine with me. I don’t plan on being here for years and I’m not here to build my social circle – I’m purely here for the money. Anyway, not knowing their names means I have to identify them somehow in my own mind. There’s some belief that naming something gives one power over it so maybe that is why I have taken to given most of them names in my own mind. The starting roster is:Marbles – she talks like she’s got a mouthful of marbles. There’s probably some physical defect that explains this, but that’s never stopped me before. I’ll make fun of anyone, equal opportunity and all that.Hair-Biter – she’s always got her hair in one hand and that hand is shoved into her own mouth. It’s weird. She’s almost always twirling or eating her own hair.Turtle – Short gal, broad shoulders, chunky and no neck. That should explain her name.Skeletor – Bony face, always with her teeth bared like a dog. Or a skeleton.Pudge – One of the (only) cuter ones. She’s rocking a few pounds of baby fat right on the gut. Too much drinking maybe, because at 30+ years old you’ve kinda lost the baby fat a while ago.Shrek – Her head is huge and she’s kind of built like Shrek. She’s not green, nor is she as funny, but it was the first thing that came to mind.Droopy – She resembles a female version of Droopy the Dog. Hang dog look and jowls to match. At 50+ it’s only gonna get worse.Ice Queen – One of the ones that doesn’t give a courtesy smile. In fact, she rarely smiles. I’ve even tried being witty and charming and nothing works. And if you don’t respond to my wit and charm, you are an Ice Queen.Milton – This looks a lot like Milton from "Office Space". He doesn’t covet a stapler that I am aware of, but if he did I wouldn’t be at all surprised.It’s Pat! – He/She that looks a lot like Pat from Saturday Night Live. One of two obvious lesbians who apparently think being gay means playing up the sterotype.Nasty Boy – The other lesbian. This one looks like one of pro-wrestling’s Nasty Boys (Suggs for those who care) only with shorter hair.Disdainful Man – Some mid-manager or something. Every time he walks by my supervisor’s cubicle and she’s not in there, an extreme look of disdain crosses his face. I think he hates women in power.That’s most of them, but there are a few more. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to naming the rest of everyone in my area. And if giving names to things truly does give one power over it, I’ll be running this place before summer is over!
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Today was a bland day for names. There were the usual few that needed some vowels and others that looked like they were made up of letters randomly chosen from a bowl of Alphabet soup. Those sometimes produce some of the funnier ones because you just know their first name is picked at random more so than it seems the placement of the letters in their last name. With monikers like Tom Giunalsdiwrb, Martin Yfgboasafjw and William Pasugqweuniuasd you just KNOW these cats are getting flagged by the TSA and every Homeland Security agency under the sun. Poor guys.Anyway… none of that has anything to do with today’s name. It’s what we call "filler" – stuff to pad things out and make them LOOK more than what they really are. Kind of like what was in the bra of Mary Sue Beckworth that night at the dance. YOU KNOW what I’m talking about!OH! Sorry. So as I was saying, today’s names were "Blah" until I ran across this guy who no doubt has endured numerous jokes over the past seven or so months:Ben ButtonOh the humanity! On the face of it, it’s a kind of cute name – kind of like what a rabbit or a teddy bear in a children’s book would be called. But when you lengthen that first name out you get a wrinkly old man who’s next birthday will drop him OUT of the octogenarian club! How much do you want to bet that the joke he’s heard most often since "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" came out is "Well, at least we won’t have to spend as much on candles next year!" or some variation thereof.Sorry about your unfortunate name, Ben. Look at it this way; at least you have a name that actually spells something.
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I hate it when you get some potentially good news. You don’t know if you should say anything for fear of jinxing it, or jumping the gun and looking like a fool. But at the same time you want to share it.I’m in one of those spots right now.Things are REALLLLLLY early in the process and I have yet to return a phone call (such is life here at that temp job where you can’t do much of anything other than work thanks to quotas), but as soon as I do, I should have a better feel for what might be. And if it DOES work out, it could be very good news. On the face of things, it seems to be what I want. Of course, hidden dangers always lie in wait below the surface and what looks to be ideal could, in fact, turn out to be totally the opposite.I know, a pretty pointless update – but I wanted to say SOMETHING, if for no reason other than to ensure that I follow through on this.More later. And maybe, if we’re lucky, another Unfortunate Name or two!
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My job (albeit a temp one) is to review paperwork that has been scanned and comapre it against what we have in our computer systems. It’s very tedious and mind-numbing work, so to keep it enjoyable I look for interesting names. Part of me hopes I stumble across someone famous, but so far no luck there. But what I HAVE found are some very unfortunate names. My favorite one so far was "Richard Holder". Subtle, yet pretty hilaious. For me, at least. Richard probably hates the jokes by now.Anyway, he was my favorite until today when, just minutes apart, I came across the following two names. I swear I am not making these up:Mai WangPeter DongPeter’s name is pretty redundant, so it’s not as funny as Mai’s name. Mai – poor girl – probably doesn’t go a day without hearing some joke about her unfortunate name. The only thing that would make her situation any funnier would be if she was an urologist. It would be like an Abbott & Costello routine in her office;"Doctor, my wang hurts.""Doctor Wang hurts who?""No, not who, it.""My wang. It hurts.""No, she doesn’t. Not even a fly.""Arggghhhhh!"I swear, it’s like these people stepped right out of an "Austin Powers" movie!
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There’s a lot of mash-ups out there – the trick is finding the good ones.Oh, what’s a mash-up? For the few that DON’T know, it’s when someone takes a couple (ore more) seemingly unrelated songs, mixes the tracks together, bits and parts here and there, and ends up with a new song. The chorus from one song might sound good over the beat to another, etc., etc.There’s a whole community out there that’s into making these things. I’m not involved with any, I just look around from time to time to find some of their efforts.So, like I said, finding the good ones can be tough. But when you do, it’s worth the time.One such one (that just came on my iPod) is "You’re The One That I Want in the Next Episode" which mixes John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John with NWA. Sounds crazy, but the result is a blend that sounds like it was written with each song in mind. It’s put together by Disfunctional DJ.A couple others worth looking up:"Guns ‘n’ Hovas" by DJ Axel"Every Car You Chase" by Party Ben"Let the Music Give Me Shelter" by Go Home ProductionsAnd, for everyone that likes to whistle, this EXCELLENT one, "Whistler’s Delight" by DJ RikoGo track some down. It’s almost like listening to some of your favorite songs for the first time!
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- Long day Sunday, LONGER week coming up. I am being tested and will pass. Much to accomplish in short time. Short sentences. Hurrah! #
- Getting ready for Kim's family reunion and, of course, it has just started to rain ever so lightly. #
- Customer was surprised that "Clone Wars" hadn't translated to BIG sales for us. Dude, did you SEE the movie?!? #
- Finally starting to settle down – I think my body realized there wasn't going to be any op-POO-tunity to hit the bathroom any time soon. #
- The noises coming from my stomach sound like something a Lovecraftian creature might make. #
- Anyone in the area of Beyond Comics in Frederick, MD – I need Imodium STAT! #
- Good: Excellent food from La Paz last night. Bad: Excellent food from La Paz last night. If I could only sell comics from the bathroom… #
- Another day at the comic shop. What sort of wonders and oddities will walk through the door today? Will try to get some writing done. #
- This is absolutely AWESOME! http://bit.ly/24OvtV #
- Tomorrow will be an All-Michael iPod day at work. Even the one-star shit from "Invincible". #
- I know the haters will be out in force, ha hah ha and all that shit, but fuck them. I am very sad right now. The King is dead.
# - Many things on my mind and it's hard to think straight. #
- I just got a wake-up call telling me that I need to get my shit together. I'm a very flawed person and I've been letting that ruin things. #
- Does anyone have a 16gig iPod just lying around? I could use one. #
- Got my copy of Slumber Party Massacre today! It'll be tough to wait until Friday night to enjoy it! #
- Testing for Twitter, http://tinyurl.com/me642m #
- Out of My Mind http://post.ly/wAx #
- Perfect weather to be at the beach! i wish i was… #
- Very unproductive day. I hate days like this where you feel like shit for not doing anything. #
- I wish I could speak Spanish. There's an Hispanic family going fucking insane next to the Hulk statue! Funniest shit I've heard all day! #
- Looking at my schedule for July and it will be a miracle if I make it to August. #
Tags: Twitter
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So, swinging through Walmart last night to buy some shoelaces and, as I always do, I made a pass through the electronics section. Out of curiosity I peeked in the music section and the Michael Jackson section was cleaned out. Thankfully, I already own all of the CDs.
What I’m hoping for now is a nice 2 or 3 DVD set with all of his videos on it. That would be cool. -
I like to do lists. They’re fun. Kim laughs at me for it, and I’m sure if she slipped into armchair shrink mode it would me wanting to make order of a world of chaos (or some such gobbledy-gook). Anyway, since I like lists, what better than a list of my favorite MJ and J5 songs? Nothing today, that’s what!Some of these will be obvious, others maybe not so much. And breaking in my own tradition, these ARE ranked with #1 being my all-time fave. It might not be what you think!#20 – Never Can Say Goodbye#19 – Who Is It?#18 – Give in to Me#17 – Dancing Machine#16 – Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)#15 – Leave Me Alone#14 – Working Day and Night#13 – Rock With You#12 – Smooth Criminal#11 – Dirty Diana#10 – Black or White#9 – Man in the Mirror#8 – The Love You Save#7 – Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough#6 – Thriller#5 – Beat It#4 – Billie Jean#3 – I’ll Be There#2 – ABC#1 – She’s Out of My LifeSo, why is "Thriller" only #6? Because I’m not rating the video. If that were the case, it WOULD be in the top spot. So why "She’s Out of My Life"? Not because it reminds me of an old girlfriend or anything like the song is about. Nope. It’s #1 because Mike sings the hell out of it. He IS the person in the song and you can feel it in his delivery. When his voice cracks at the end you almost want to choke back a tear with him.Agree? Disagree? Comment away and we can discuss!
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Same as the old boss.Well, not exactly the same.I’ve been in denial about my own shortcomings for far too long. I didn’t want to admit that the faults I had were there and as a result I’ve nearly knocked over the precarious house of cards I’ve been living in.Sometimes complacency makes you blind. You get comfortable and tend to relax, letting your guard down. You get lazy and stop trying, being content with and accepting things as they are. You become reactive instead of proactive. I have a book which I really need to re-read called ‘Who Moved the Cheese’ and it details exactly what I am guilty of. The problem is, once you become complacent you don’t care until one day, when you go to eat your cheese, it isn’t there anymore. What you should be doing is never allowing your cheese to get taken away; you need to always be looking for new cheese, or at least, be preparing to find new cheese. Like I said, I haven’t read the book in a while and I’m probably messing the message up a little.Confidence, or lack thereof, can be a major factor in things as well. If you allow your confidence to erode, such as I have, it gets harder and harder to rise up and be proactive. Lack of confidence fosters complacency which creates a reactive individual. And this can be the hardest thing to overcome – it is for me. I allow the negative – small, large or other – to over shadow the positive and I fall into a death-spiral that just gets worse and worse. Sure, I put on a happy face, but it’s no secret that I’ve been in a yucky mood for quite some time. It’s confidence and complacency. I need to fix one and get rid of the other.It’s hard. I’ve been this way – and getting worse – for, I dunno, 20 some years now. For every step forward I’ve taken in the past, I’ve taken two – or at best, a step and-a-half – back. I need to make changes, and quickly. I can’t rely on others to being me cheese, I need to go get my own. And I have to rid myself of self-doubt. Like the wise, old, martial arts guru Master Chumbawamba once said, "He who gets knocked down must get up again".
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I don’t recall if Ed has mentioned this or not, so I’ll go ahead do it…We got the purchase order from Diamond for FoJ #5 and the numbers WERE up, but still not enough. We got a reprieve, though, and they’re going to go ahead and distribute the issue as scheduled. That’s the good news.The bad news is that unless the numbers really pop for #6, we’re probably done insofar as being carried through Diamond. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE COMIC IS DEAD, THOUGH!We’ve been maneuvering to go to a digital format for some time, so folks with an iPod, iPhone or, I guess, iTunes, will still be able to get your fix of Justice. After a while, we’ll collect the digital comics into a print edition, perhaps a 3-issue trade paperback or something. I’m still trying to convince Ed that we should have the issues available at one of the P.O.D. places, but Ed’s concerned about the quality and price of the book. A full color issue will still cost around $4 and we’d like to get away from that if at all possible. My thinking is that if someone wants to pay $4 for the comic, let them. I know I will, just so I can have a complete run in comic form. The silver lining of the "bad news" is that if we forego the traditional comic format, we’ll save money. And not having a printing bill is a pretty lucrative looking option for Ed these days.What are YOUR thoughts? Will you just write the book off if we go to a digital/POD format? Will you wait for the collected editions? Do you have some other option you’d like to see? It’s one thing to look at trends with other books and publishers and try to gauge what would be the best route to take, but hearing directly from the fans of the book is the only real way we’ll know how to proceed.Of course, if everyone orders a couple of copies or convinces a friend to order one, we’ll be okay. If the numbers were where they should be for an awesome comic of this caliber we wouldn’t even be considering any of the above!Again, and I want to stress this – we’re not hanging up our red boots and big FJ belt buckle just yet! In fact, we’ve got some really cool stuff planned – stuff that’s going to remind you why you liked the book in the first place or, if you’re new to the book, make you happy you finally gave it a shot.You can drop me a line here at imboden.org in the comments to this post, on Facebook, the fistofjustice.com website or on Twitter (@mikeimboden) if you want more info on Fist of Justice or to order back issues!
