So there I was, going over my monthly budget. Logging in to my bill-pay sites and scheduling payments for the end of this week (the middle of the month is d-day for 75% of my bills). I worked out some calculations based on gas usage and what I've been spending on eating out.

I came out amazingly proud of mysaelf.

I pat myself on the back for the first time in my life.

It felt GOOD.

Please, go pat yourself on the back - on me.

Yesterday, a friend at work introduced me to CRAB BATTLE!

I had never heard of or seen this before and was treated like some old man who has no idea what's going on in the world anymore.

I've been thinking about internet and geek memes that persist today or even some I may be the only one who gets anymore. The rule of thumb I've used in assembling the following list is pretty much this - if it references something and I go "oh, yeah, I watched/read/played that too!". Please add whatever I miss.

kekekeke  
42  
The cake is a lie.  
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The wilhelm scream 
i can has cheezburger  
princess is in another castle 
lobster magnet 
lightswitch rave 
you have died of dysentery 
WAAAAAAGH! 
more dots!  
Leeeeeroooooooy Jeeeeeeeenkiiiiiiiiiins! 
Roll for initiative, monkeyboy!

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Please! Add to the list in comments, please include links to wikipedia or other appropriate explanations.

Mom. (She's 42!)

So, recently, I've been making changes in my life. For one, I've cut back on my spending and am working toward getting myself out of debt in a few years.

Another thing I decided to do was to start making changes in my diet. One thing I thought I might do was to cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup (or HCFS). I'd heard allegations of HFCS being a major offender in causing obesity and diabetes. So, I went to the store and looked at labels. Almost everything has HFCS in it. There are a few juice brands that are "100% Juice" for real and then there are a few soda brands that use cane sugar. Anyhow, after about 5 days without any HFCS and not feeling all that different, I decided to do a bit of reading. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup

I am a fool. I got swept up in anti-ingredient hysteria. Why? To make myself think that I was making a healthy decision. Sure, I drink more juice and water, but I did when I tried to give up soda before, too. Now, I think I'm going to just cut back on as much sugar as I can. Drink more water, unsweetened tea, and milk. When I need to drink something sweet; apple juice and orange juice. The soda I bought which advertises pure cane sugar isn't actually made with pur cane sugar, but that pure cane sugar chemically broken down from sucrose to it's glucose and fructose components.

The lesson in all of this is, before you make a drastic (and expensive) decision to cut certain elements from your diet in the hopes of being healthier, do some research to ensure that the ingredient you're substituting isn't equally unhealthy. You might be surprised at what you find out.

I think this goes for anyone considering a fad diet - atkins, south beach, or that all carb diet from the 80's. Even people considering raw food, vegan, or vegetarian diets. I recently spoke with my friend (and former manager) James, who is a vegetarian. I think he's a vegetarian mainly for "health" reasons than for moral reasons. He recently revealed to me that his cholesterol is sky-high. Why?: Because of all of the foods he eats to gain that protein he would otherwise lose out on from not eating meat. Just because someone tries it and sees some success in it, doesn't mean it's necessarily right for you. Do your research and weigh the health risks first.

And learn to give up the Shift key every once in a while. 

I've been in scriptwriting mode. It's neat and fun. I'm excited about a new project in the works. I've re-awakened the comics geek in me and I'm all a tingle at the prospect of finally having a creative voice that I won't be the only one to hear.

See, I have a friend who's good at what he does. He seems to like what I'm doing and has proposed that we team up. Though, he's thrown a monkey-wrench in the works and wants to pull me slightly out of my comfort zone for this. I figure, what the hell. It's worth a try - change and the challenges following are fires that can make me better or help me realize that this isn't a creative outlet for me.

Still, I'm very used to writing joke strips. Short strips that are Set-up, beat, and punchline. Not always in that order but with the intent of bringing the funny. The characters I have written about are fairly one-dimensional but they have a little depth to them. See, despite the formula-like qualities of what I've written, I'm probably more of what Scott McCloud might define as an animist.

The prospect my friend has put in front of me is writing these characters in a slightly more contiguous world - a long-form comic. Which means I have to connect the dots of the jokes. Daunting. Especially as I began to consider things about some of the conentions and shortcuts in story-telling I took. The protagonist is an asshole. Almost unable for people to identify with except for a select few (me, really). If he gets put into a longer form, how do we keep him going? How do we keep a reader interested and how do we tell funny and perhaps somewhat profound stories? The past few days had me reeling with what possibilities lie ahead and how I could balance my sick sense of humor with other rather morbid sensibilities. I thought of adding aspects of tragedy. My heart sank as I considered this because I want the comic to be mostly light-hearted but when you handle subject matter like I do, you find that tragedy becomes more and more difficult to avoid.

I made a mistake, though. I considered all iof these things using what I knew abotu the characters in my head. I forgot how I put them on paper. Forgot that they do have personalities outside of me and that they aren't as one-dijmensional as I feared - I just pigeonholed them for easy joke development in my head.

I'm still stuck for a script format. For now I'm adopting a version of the screenplay format, but I'm still unsure of some of the spatial positioning. I feel almost encouraged to rope my friend into doing a Marvel-style format (write the plot, let the artist do the art and then write in dialogue).

Anyhow, once I get some scripts done and my friend decides things are fitting together well, I'll make an announcement about what's really going on. If it doesn't happen, then it'll just be another learning experience for both of us - but I've been waiting too long for a willing and able co-conspirator, I'm not about to let that fall through the cracks.