Garfield Minus Garfield

Just in case you haven't seen this, check out this site:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

The basic premise is to take the character of Garfield out of Garfield comics, turning it into a vision at a single man's battle with loneliness and insanity. Some of the strips are downright hilarious, just pointing out how unnecessary Garfield's punchlines are to the script. If nothing else, it makes you read the strip differently. The punchline is usually delivered by Jon, and then Garfield makes a snarky comment about it. Here's another of my favorites:

Keith Richards is new frontman for Louis Vuitton - Yahoo! News

Stones guitarist is new frontman for Louis Vuitton - Yahoo! News

I'm trying to come up with a "leather face" kind of joke, but nothing solid is coming. Just know that I'm trying. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

It's a good thing this is for a print campaign. Can you imagine Keith Richards slurring his way through a commercial?

Cheers,
Eli

Words of Wisdom (Teeth)

I've been out of service for the last few days after having my wisdom teeth taken out on Friday morning. Things are OK now, but I'm dying for some solid food. I was only really in pain the first day and now I'm just waiting for the stitches to dissolve and the swelling to go down. So, I'm back on my feet and ready to blog! It's going to be another random thoughts collection today, but I promise I'm not making these a habit. One of these days I'll have a posting with a coherent theme, I swear.

Saturday Night Live- Your opening sketch last week about Obama getting preferential treatment over Clinton in the media was funny. It was, however, at least 3 minutes too long and Fred Armisen did a horrible impression of Obama. Your opening sketch THIS week about Obama getting preferential treatment over Clinton in the media was tedious. Maybe its because it was THE EXACT SAME IDEA as the one that was 3 minutes too long last week! You took something that was too long already and made it nearly 10 minutes longer! Sure, having the real Hilary there was fun, but she didn't add anything to the sketch.
And Fred Armisen...man. I'm not a fan of his in general, and this Obama impression just made it worse. I don't care that he's a white guy playing a black guy. There's no black guy in the cast right now, so you do what you've got to do. The impression just makes it look like he's never even heard of the man he's impersonating. By the end of this week's sketch, I expected him to ask the moderator of the debate for a Pic-a-nic basket. Have you ever thought Obama sounded like Yogi Bear? Apparently Fred Armisen has. Mr. Armisen- I'm sure you're a lovely person, but you have once again failed to show me any real talent. Go find an improv troupe that's looking for a guy who can do a fake Brooklyn accent (seriously, 80% of the characters he plays use this same voice) and leave SNL for the professionals.
Maybe he's a better writer than a performer, I don't know. I just haven't ever been impressed. And writers? Give me something original this week. I can't suffer through that sketch again.

Commercials- Denny's? Those commercials with Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos? I have a few questions. Why would he go to a restaurant just to give a clerk fake money for a "fake" breakfast? If you don't like a place, you don't have to go there. There seem to be a lot of commercials where irate people take things out on cashiers and customer service reps. You shouldn't encourage this kind of behavior. I understand that we as Americans feel entitled to having everything catered to us, but if we don't get our way, we shouldn't be taking it out on the poor folks on the front lines. It's NEVER their fault. Please treat your customer service people with respect.
McDonald's? You have a commercial for your breakfast burrito in which one guy gets mad at his roommate (presumably) for buying breakfast instead of making it. He says, "Hey, the deal was that you'd MAKE me breakfast." What deal? What is this man trading for breakfasts? Young man, you should never debase and degrade yourself for cooked eggs. They're easy to make youself...have some dignity.
One more thing- should we just make a commercial for our country saying, "America- lie to your wives and girlfriends and do whatever you can not to work!"? Because that's the general idea that 90% of our commercials are espousing right now. If I see one more commercial about a guy who comes up with a crazy scheme for getting away from his wife to hang out with the guys, I'm going to lose it. Here's a crazy scheme- Tell your wife you'd like to hang out with your friends, and if she's too controlling to ever let you, maybe there's a bigger issue and you should be spending some time with her instead of finding ways to smuggle cheap beer into important events in her life. Sheesh.

And finally, briefly, Politics- Hilary Clinton today says that she's, "Just getting warmed up." Um, Hilary? I admire the sentiment and I'm certainly not counting you out, but isn't it a little late for warm ups? Even if you were leading, this thing is coming into the home stretch. The bottom of the ninth isn't the time to start warming up your starting pitcher. Maybe you should have gotten warmed up in December or January. Just sayin'.

Ok, that's enough long-windedness.

Cheers,
Eli

Things I've Done

Sing Us A Song
Originally uploaded by EliCubs

Hey there, faithful followers, sorry I've been AWOL. I'd love to say it was for some great, noble cause, but I just haven't felt like blogging much in the last week. I guess I've been a little busier than usual at work. With the strike over we've had roughly 15 scripts submitted to us in the last week. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Let's see, the wife and I went to see Billy Joel at the hockey arena in Anaheim on Saturday. As always, Billy puts on a hell of a show. It was basically the same show I saw in Chicago almost a year ago, but highly entertaining. And the picture is the actual view from our seats. It's like I told Ticketmaster, "As far away as possible, please." But it was all good, the arena was fairly small and we had a nice clear view.

Last week, I ran 5k for the first time ever. I did it again this morning. That's a pretty big accomplishment for me. I went from sedentary to 5k in about 3 months. I also signed up for the Disneyland 5k Fun Run in August. I don't see myself as the kind of guy who will be racing every week, but this seemed like a low key event and a good excuse to run around the parks before they open for the day. Should be fun.

What else? Not much, I guess. Here's a list of new technology I'd like to have if anyone feels like dropping $500 on me for no reason: Blu-Ray player (a profile 2.0 player when they come out in a couple of months, or a PS3, which is generally considered the best player out there right now, even though I'd rather have a 360 for gaming), speaking of which- Xbox 360, Time Capsule (Apple's wireless hard drive thingy), Canon Digital Rebel XTI, iPhone (whenever the next version comes out). Hm, maybe I should just save myself some time and rob a Best Buy (note to government wiretappers/spies- I'm kidding).

So yeah, that's about it. I'll try to do a better job of updating this thing.

Cheers,
Eli

Bettering Myself

I've decided to stop typing "www" when I enter web addresses. Any modern browser will add it automatically if you need it, and many sites don't even use it anymore. And here I've been, wasting my time and energy with three extra keystrokes every time I visit a website. And frankly, as much time as I spend online, that's a lotta W's. I could be using those keystrokes to write something I could sell (I'm assuming that there is a finite number of keystrokes available to me and I don't want to be wasting them on erroneous W's).

Here's the rub. I've been typing in URLs for over ten years. Getting out of the habit of typing the triple W is proving to be VERY difficult. I type it by instinct, even if I don't know the rest of the address I'm typing. Half the time I make the effort not to type it, only to notice I already have. I need your support. I'm thinking of getting a WWW-Typing Support ribbon made up- has green with yellow stripes been used?

Cheers,
Eli

Happy Valentine's, Sentient Being

Happy Valentine's, Sentient Being
Originally uploaded by EliCubs

Me and the missus aren't much for Valentine's Day, so we don't have much of anything planned. She did, however, give me this totally rockin' valentine last night.

The last few years, she's tried to get the tackiest Valentine's cards she could find to hand out at work. Last year, it was temporary tattoos. This year, it's Transformers. In case you can't read it, mine says, "FREEDOM is the RIGHT of ALL Sentient Beings, Valentine!"

That Optimus Prime sure has a way with words doesn't he? He can get right to a lady's heart. Fellas, I recommend you try this line tonight. Light some candles, open that fancy bottle of wine, get real close to your lady, sensuously caress her shoulders, and whisper in her ear, "Freedom is the right of ALL sentient beings, baby." You're guaranteed to get lucky. Let me know, in detail, how it works.

Cheers,
Eli

Our Long National Nightmare...

That's right, folks, everything can return to normal. Our long national nightmare is at last at an end. I am, of course, referring to...the baseball offseason. As of today, February 13th, pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training for the Chicago Cubs at HoHoKam Park in Mesa, AZ. We're just two weeks away from Spring Training games, where we can watch our favorite players for one inning before they give way to the superstars (and car salesmen) of tomorrow. And just one month after that, real baseball begins. Sure, we've had football to keep us company since October, but it's not the same. And this week and a half since the Super Bowl has been terrible. Apparently, tall gentlemen have taken to wearing short pants and playing a game called "Baskets-ball" or some such nonsense. This is the first I'm hearing of it. And hockey. Well. I actually like hockey, and even I can't be bothered to watch it with any frequency. If I see a hockey game on TV, I'll look at who's playing and if it isn't the Penguins, Red Wings, or Thrashers; there's zero chance I'm watching. (Those teams each stand about a 25% chance of me watching, but even then it's unlikely I'll watch the whole thing). And with young superstar Sidney Crosby out for months, there's even less excitement.

Then, over on the horizon, you can see a glimmer of light. Is it Apollo's fingers pulling forth the dawn? Is it the Aurora Borealis dancing its graceful spectral ballet? Is it the lamp of a lady, beckoning you to her hidden cottage for comfort and warmth? It is all of these things and more- it is Spring Training. Baseball has returned.

Seriously, this is the best time of year to be a Cubs fan. The optimism of the new season is fresh and the harsh reality of defeat has yet to fall upon our shoulders. All of that, "Wait until next year" crap? Next year is HERE, brother! One hundred years of futility have led to this, and we all expect it to end this October. We're a good team in a bad division, so we've got a real shot. Plus, we made the playoffs last year and this year's team looks a bit better (on paper, anyway). I am ready to waste my time watching baseball once again, and I have a good feeling about the 2008 Cubs. But ask me again in July.

As a side note, the picture I posted is my favorite Cubs logo. It came about in the early 20th century and was the team's logo into at least the 30s or 40s. What amuses me about it is how the bear is holding the bat. They could have gone all cartoony and silly and dressed a bear in a uniform and made it look like he was about to swing, but they didn't. That's the way a bear would actually hold a bat- his opposable thumb-less paws trying desperately to hold it against his body. I can imagine the design meeting:

GARY: Whaddya think of this, Marty? I've got a bear that thinks he's people! Big smile on his face, wearing a Cubs uniform, at the plate, taking a big bopper swing! Hachacha!
MARTY: Wait just a minute here, somethin' ain't right. No, no, no, this is all wrong! A bear can't hold a bat like that, Gary! It's madness, absolute poppycock! People want reality, you go draw me a real bear or you're fired, see?

Oh Marty, such a stickler for realism.

Speaking of national nightmares, the writer's strike has finally ended. People go back to work today and new shows should be on the air by April at the latest. Now when I'm writing without being paid, people will just assume that I'm lousy and talentless, not on strike. Oh well.

Cheers,
Eli