Three NEW Oil Spill Cleanup Solutions!

FEAR the Girl Scouts.

Use as directed.

Losin' It #29

Beamer and Blog #2

Obedience Training for Dummies

Losin' It #26

Tasha has been taking our Neopolitan Mastiff puppy, Argus to obedience training. He does however have some issues with other dogs.

Oh, the HORROR!

Losin' It #veinti cinco

I want to preface this entry by saying that I did not have a horrible childhood, it was alright. That being said there were some questionable ideas that were developed in the Hale household. This is a little story about one of them. First off, we did not live out in the middle of nowhere, in some remote location seldom frequented by civilized human beings. We lived just outside the city limits, and had a city water supply. We also had a well that was used strictly for irrigation so my parents water bill would stay low. In addition we did not live on some large farm or ranch. We had a house on a large city lot. One day, when I was about 12 or so, my father announced to the family that the well was running dry, but never fear, he had developed a plan to save the Hale household's water bill. He was going to send my brother and I down the well to start digging. To me this was not nearly as great a plan as I think he thought it was.

Now the well was approximately 40 feet deep or so and there wasn't a whole lot of elbow room around a kid when he was down it. My father's awesome idea was comprised of a large "A" shaped steel thingy-ma-bob that went from the ground and leaned at an angle against the house. On the big "A" there was mounted a hand crank winch with a cable. At the end of the cable was a wooden seat like a swing set seat. This was the contraption that lowered me down the well. As far as I know ther were no buried bodies, giant naked mole rats, or Creatures from the Black Lagoon, but those are the kind of things a kid thinks about when he is being lowered down a pitch black well. My equipment included a hard hat with a regular flashlight duct taped on top, A rain coat, and a tall pair of rubber boots. While I was down the well a plastic 5 gallon bucket was lowered with a shovel that had part of the handle sawed off because there just wasn't room for a regular legth shovel down the well. I spent hours digging and filling the bucket which was pulled up when full, bouncing off the sides of the well all the way up, knocking rocks back down on me. But I had my hard hat.

This went on for some time; it seemed like years, but was really just most of the summer. One day while my dad was at work my mom lowered me down the well and the winch came off the crank and I was stuck half way down the well. My mom ran and got some neighbors, it turned into a real "boy trapped in the well" situation. One of the neighbors was able to fix the winch and get me out. You might think that would be a moment to ponder an end to the children down the well situation; nope, I was down the well the next day. After a summer of digging we were allowed to stop, I don't feel like we made a whole lot of headway on the well, but hey, now I have an interesting story to tell.

"No Parking"

Losin' It #17: I often have trouble finding parking spaces. At my work a lot of the parking is assigned to specific individuals or labeled as parking for carpools, official visitors, maintenance workers, handicapped drivers, and motorcycles. It leaves slim pickin's for the rest of us. One thing that is not labeled is the bicycle rack. It has no sign that states it is ony for bikes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to start parking there, though I will use a bike lock to ensure that no one steals my car...or tows it.

Ain't No Party Like a Whoop Whoop Dance Party!

Losin' It # 16


I'm not much for dancing, especially in public places, but if you're going to cut loose, the music store is the perfect place. Unlimited supply of music and plenty of space for trying out awesome new moves. I've notice in hindsight (after it was brought to my attention by Luna) that it lookes as though I am farting in panel number 3, but that's okay, somtimes that will happen in the music store, especially when you're dancing. In addition, I've just been told by Tashie that it looks like the bald man in the last panel is using the CD display rack as though it was a urinal; that is absolutely not the case. That would be totally inappropriate behavior, even at the music store...what am I thinking, especially at the music store...your attorney's office on the other hand is the perfect place...right on his desk...on his name plate and pen holder.

Tada!

Losin' It #15
I'm married now, and chocolate and peanutbutter is a wonderful flavor combination. I love Tashie and she is very, very funny and fun to be around, so this was a good decision. Plus she helps me with my blog so I have to keep her...and she's a good cook.

Seattle's very own Mayor McCheese

Losin' It #12

I see Mayor Nickels as having just about the biggest political double stadard there is. While he tells all of the rest of us to stop driving our cars and get on the bus, he uses 5 gallons of gas a day in his official automobile according to city expense records; that doesn't even count the fuel for the other luxury cars he drives at public expense. I think Mayor McCheese should try walking a little, no a LOT, more. Forget being the mayor, Nickels acts like he's the KING of Seattle.

Tales from the "Hood" Part Deux

Losin' It #11



The "Hood":

Like I said in my post titled "Tamales"; I lived in a ROUGH neighborhood for a while. When your dogs have to go, they have to go no matter what time it is, and most of the time that was in the middle of the night. One night I found myself in the middle of a group disturbance that was evolving around me - when one of the guys began yelling for another guy to either shoot him or stab him. It was interesting, although I'm not quite sure how a conversation leads to that point. The guy was very emotional and extremely dramatic, in an extra ordinary crybaby wanna be center of attention sort of way.

TAMALES!!

Losin' It #9



For about a year or so I lived in the "hood". I'm sure that there are far worse neighborhoods than the one in which I was living, but for explanation purposes it was poor, crime ridden, and had significant gang influences. I'm not going to go into detail about which gang, because that type of stuff isn't my business, but they labeled or "tagged" the neighborhood and every wall, fence, dumpster, tree, etc. I think it would be nice for gangs to get some nice professional signs made, maybe some nice sand blasted wood, to promote their influence and mark their territory, but that's just me...it would look better though. Okay back to the comic...In the complex that I lived in there was a lady that came around often selling tamales out of a baby stroller. It was just one of the many charming aspects of the place...

Kim Jong Il is crazy...and crazy for Pizza!

Losin' It #7:


I was reading BBC News a few days ago, and I came across an article written by Hugh Levinson that illustrates the absurdity of Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea. He holds the positions of "General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea" as well as "Chairman of the National Defense Commission". He is deified by the people of North Korea and demands absolute obedience and agreement; he views any deviation from this as a sign of disloyalty, which I'm sure is met with all kinds of nasty and horrible consequences. Any way...back to the article. Hugh Levinsom writes that a computer expert and part time chef at the "Pizza Institute" in northern Italy named Ermanno Furlanis received a strange call in the middle of the night as he was trying to get some sleep. It was a top chef at a swanky hotel that had been contacted by foreign diplomats from North Korea. They were recruiting experts to do culinary demonstrations to teach North Korean Army officers to make pizza. There was a group of chefs that went and all received x-rays, electrocardiograms, MRI/brain scans, along with urine and blood samples being taken before entering North Korea. I don't know what else to say other than this has to be as crazy and paranoid as a leader can be.


Coming in the next post: the arrival of the Spectacular Super Scootch - defender of all things fair and just.

I octohate the octomom

Losin' It #6:


The Octomom has really gotten on my nerves and under my skin. The lady is a compulsive liar! She is obviously crazy as both of her parents have stated! She is completely irresponsible by having 14 children with no job and spending all of the money that she has received from a disability claim on plastic surgery! If most of these children don't grow up to be incarcerated felons, they will likely have mental health issues or extreme emotional problems from being raised by or anywhere near this nut job. Octomom you're octonuts and an octoirresponsible, octonarcisstic octodrama queen. I wish you would octodisappear.

Not so secret agents love white meat and damn dirty apes.

Losin' It #5:

This ones an oldy, but a goody for Mike; a guy to which you don't want to entrust your top secret documents.
Nine out of ten sharks agree that surfers are delicious, zesty, and taste a lot like chicken or similar savory poultry.
Just because you're 80 feet tall and can project searing flames of fiery devastation from your mouth at will, doesn't mean that life is without its annoyances. I mean there's always someone out there trying to get between you and your milk and cookies.

Head Cheese

Here is the second comic for Losin' It.

Losin' It #2:

The book I started is titled "Head Cheese". Here are the first several pages that I completed; it's awesome and delicious, so strap on your bib, grab your lobster mallet, and dive in face first. It's low cal and carb free. Bon appetit.

Trying to get syndicated or published sucks.

I started a comic strip that I was pitching to syndicators as a weekly comic strip for newspapers. I never achieved syndication, which is okay because newspapers are obsolete now anyway. I will be posting this and some others I've worked on in order with each post, along with other miscellaneous comics. This was originally titled "Extra Crunchy", but I later changed the name to "Losin' It" and that is what I was pitching and where I'll start.
Losin' it #1:
I pulled into the 7 eleven the other day and the guy that worked there was out sweeping the parking lot. You would think that a guy that works at the gas station would recognize the dangers of smoking around the gas pumps and fumes, but I guess not...and it is completely possible to over-use the word "man".

My Inaugural Blog

This cartoon illustrates that as a Real Life Superhero, I battle the four main threats to humanity in this day and age: robots, vampires, aliens from other planets, and bail out banks.




There are several reasons to avoid robot domination, and this is one of them.
On my 40th birthday I made the decision to treat myself to a new car. As many people have experienced, buying a car can be very painful. The following comic illustrates some of the madcap antics that I experienced.