Although I may not have fully articulated it, I think this was the plan: Learn to draw, while continuing to update The Chalkboard Manifesto for a year. So far, I’ve failed on both counts. I haven’t been practicing drawing all that much. I have a lot of excuses, many of them legitimate, but I will not enumerate them here. I’ve also neglected to update my comic for about a month. There’s also a reason for that.

There are two mismatches going on. First, there’s a mismatch between the comics I want to make and the style of The Chalkboard Manifesto. I want to play with multiple panels and draw more expressive faces. I don’t want my comic to be merely a twitter account with stick figures. Or worse, to be like those shitty quotes people post all the time on facebook. I should be telling actual jokes, writing weird things, and conveying emotions. I have a bunch of post-its with jokes that I’ve written, but I don’t know if they accomplish what I want to accomplish. They don’t satisfy me. And I haven’t been able to fill more post-its. There’s a kind of writer’s block going on. I do have some jokes I like, but they are of the longer variety and don’t fit the style. Plus, there’s the second mismatch going on.

The second mismatch is between my skill in drawing and the types of comics I want to draw. So, I do want to draw better comics, but I don’t yet have the skill to make something I’d like to share on the web. My people look flat when I try to draw them. I’m not even sure I should try to make them chalkboard style.

I’m stuck between drawing comics with jokes I’m no longer satisfied with, or putting up comics with drawings I’m not satisfied with. I thought I’d be able to avoid this. I thought I’d still be satisfied with the old jokes, so I could still post comics. In the mean time, I’d be training so I could manage a transition to better comics. But this plan isn’t working. This means I need a new plan.

I guess there are two options. Both options involve getting over my embarrassment and posting my crappy drawings. I’ll let myself evolve in public instead of private. I am a child of the internet age, after all. The choice becomes the vehicle. Do I do this on The Chalkboard Manifesto? Or do I kill my comic and get a fresh start with a new tumblr?

Any opinions?

I have been in pain for so long, that I think I’m graduating from 2 pills to 3 pills. I wonder when I get to be like House and start hallucinating.

(continued from Part I)

11. Procure water bottle from car and duct tape from closet.
12. Create wasp trap and bait it with a concoction that will kill the wasp.
13. Realize that the attempted poison has one ingredient that smells too strong. The laundry soap overpowers the sugar.
14. Say “Oh well fuck it” and put the trap on the windowsill.
15. Wait.
16. Empty out trap.
17. Wash trap thoroughly.
18. Really thoroughly.
19. Try baiting with sugar and water.
20. Wait.
21. Check trap, find it still empty.
22. Search entire room for wasp. This search is futile, of course.
OPTIONAL: Over the course of the day, find a bunch of moths in the rice and a spider in the couch, but still no fucking wasp.
23. Make educated guess that wasp is hiding inside the top bar of the blinds.
24. Sleep in guest bedroom instead of dealing with ninja wasp.
25. Toss and turn because futon is way less comfy than Ikea bed.
26. Think about baiting trap with something new, but don’t, because today was really frustrating and ugh who wants to deal with a stupid wasp.
27. Have girlfriend bang on wasp hiding spot with screwdriver to the flush the wasp out, but it still decides not to grace us with its presence.
28. Question sanity.
29. Sleep in normal room, expecting to find wasp on face in the morning.

To be continued…

Step 1) Discover wasp in bedroom.
Step 2) Trap wasp in room. Escape with iPad, but no pants.
Step 3) Tweet about it.
Step 4) Have the most productive day coding since you started working at home. Avoid the wasp.
Step 5) At night, search entire room for wasp. When there is no trace of the wasp, assume you were mistaken and the wasp was outside the entire time. (After all, it’s not the first time.)
Step 6) Hear wasp in the morning and confirm that it’s inside.
Step 7) Don wasp-catching gear. Put on hoodie and jacket over hoodie. Put on thickest socks and pull over pant legs. Put on shoes. Put on oven mitts.
Step 8) Grab a jar and some cardboard to catch the wasp.
Step 9) Go back in bedroom and discover no sign of wasp.
Step 10) Research wasp traps on the internets.

To be continued…

I do think the SEC has been the best conference for the last 6 years, but I don’t think it’s been as dominant as everyone thinks. Let’s review the last 6 BCS Championships:

2006 – Florida defeats Ohio State <- Doesn't count, Big 10 sucks (Ted Ginn was hurt, but he can't catch anyway, so it's a wash) 2007 - LSU defeats Ohio State <- Doesn't count, Big 10 sucks 2008 - Florida defeats Oklahoma <- Win 2009 - Alabama defeats Texas <- Colt McCoy injured, so not so dominant 2010 - Auburn defeats Oregon <- Auburn wins on a last second field goal after a fluke non-tackle (that should've been called down), and the Oregon defense is better than most of the SEC defenses they went against 2011 - Alabama defeats LSU <- SEC is 1-1 in championship games this year I only count when game where the SEC dominated. One year, the SEC also lost a game. One year, they beat a team without their superstar QB. One year, they won on a last-second field goal. The other years they beat the Big 10, which doesn't really count. So, yes, the SEC is probably the best conference. (Or at least, at the top, they're great. If you root for a team like Ole Miss, I don't think you get to have any conference pride.) However, I don't think the consecutive championships prove that the SEC has been as dominant as people think.