Rags T. Cat Helps Us Play Scrabble

by on April 1, 2014 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Blog, Humor

[dc]I[/dc] enjoy most board games. Said games are a great way to bond with friends, family, and as Stephanie and I learned recently: pets.

Yes. Our cat Rags decided he wanted to play Scrabble with us. Bless his little, fuzzy, mischief filled heart.

Fun is Spelled S-C-R-A-B-B-L-E

Scrabble is a favorite game of mine, as are most words games (like Bananagrams, and lying to children). It took some arm-twisting to get Stephanie to agree to play, as her favorite game is watch reality TV—I mean, Qwirkle.

I set up the Scrabble board while Rags watched from the comfort of his box, his eyes darting side to side. Everything was fine, until I set down the Bag of Letters.

Trouble is Spelled R-A-G-S

The instant I set down the bag of Scrabble letter tiles, Rags sat up and pounced.

cat scrabble

Nooooo.

“No!” I yelled as Rags attacked the bag, batting at it like it was a wounded rodent.

cat scrabble

The bag’s blood is letter tiles D:

Tiles scattered across the table. I groaned. Stephanie laughed. So much for a quiet game of Scrabble. After attacking the bag and tiles, Rags decided to lay down on the Scrabble board.

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The Cats Missed Me

by on March 30, 2014 at 2:37 pm
Posted In: Blog, Humor

[dc]I[/dc] went to Detroit on Saturday for a family gathering and stayed the night. This meant Stephanie was in charge of feeding the cats, which they kindly reminded her of at 6:42 this morning. Once I got home this afternoon, I took a much-needed nap–and I had company.

cats napping

Zzzz. Photo by me.

Yes, Nigel and Rags joined me for my nap. The boys missed me, bless their fuzzy hearts. It feels nice to know someone misses you, even if the someones are tiny carnivores who know where you sleep.

Stephanie missed me too, of course, because my return means she doesn’t have to feed the cats at 6 AM tomorrow. And she loves me too, I guess.

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Amazon Enigmas: April Fool’s Day

by on March 26, 2014 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Amazon Enigmas, Blog, Humor

[dc]I[/dc]t appears Amazon branched out when it came to holidays. Sure, anyone can offer special online stores for Christmas, Mother’s Day, or even Bruce Campbell‘s birthday. Amazon went to the next level (no, not a special store for Ted Raimi‘s¹ birthday), and now features an April Fool’s Day store—because, Why Not?

Buckle up.

 Leave April Fool’s Day To The Pros

Social media opened the flood gates for amateur hour pranks on April Fool’s Day. Facebook status updates proclaiming ‘I’m pregnant,’ or ‘I lost my job,’ or ‘I have bovine tuberculosis,’ are lazy and, commonplace, and not funny.

If you are going to ‘prank’ the social medias, at least put more than three seconds of thought into the joke. Try taking a selfie with these horse hooves gloves instead.

horse hooves

I had that dream again. Image via Amazon.

Don’t supply any context—because folks love judging out of context photos on Facebook and Twitter. Upload photos of yourself going about your daily routine, all while wearing horse hooves. Or as I like to call it: Wednesday.

Friends in Low Places

Of course, when it comes to horses, there’s always this tiny horse man puppet, which I’m sure you can use for all kinds of equine hijinks on April Fool’s Day.

Horse man puppet

I had that other dream again. Image via Amazon.

Sure, the tiny horse man puppet might look like nightmare fuel, but everything is funnier with a puppet–remember the hilarity of the George W. Bush administration? Dress up like a horse man with a mask of your own, and really freak out the Normals on April Fool’s Day. Or just recreate one of my fever dreams.

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Behind the Scenes: Generation Gap

by on March 25, 2014 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Behind the Scenes, Blog, News

[dc]I[/dc]n the notes for Monday’s comic, I mentioned I hit a bit of a snag during clean-up. I decided to use watercolor paint in the third panel, to color my cartoony Cthulhu.

Like signing Yahoo Serious to a multi picture deal, it was a great idea–in theory.

Yet, I forgot one important fact until after the paint dried: I always delete the comic’s color channels in Photoshop.

blue lines comic

Gasp! I can see your blue lines! Final version.

 Good-bye, Blue Lines

I delete color channels in Photoshop to get rid of my comic’s blue lines. I sketch and letter with blue lead—deleting the color channels makes all my messing sketching and lettering guide lines disappear. Computer magic!

More like computer tragic this time around. Say good-bye to all my painting work (poor Cthulhu would just be a black mass).¹

The easy solution was to just drop the painted Cthulhu into another copy of the comic—after I deleted the color channels and switched it back to RGB mode. Pasting Big Green in the same spot in the black and white version wasn’t difficult (dropping the opacity helped with lining stuff up).

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