That's not MY beeping blipping thing.


Riding the train this week, I noticed that I'm not noticing something.
Namely, the various bleeps and bloops and little tiny versions of hit songs that emit from all over the place.
That used to be a real attention-getter. Now, nobody cares. People just erupt in blips and bloops all the time. It's like... gas.
A contractor at my house this week kept having Michael Jackson sing from his shirt pocket.
My phone has this kind of house-trip-hop groove it plays when I have a call, which I don't really realize is a call for a good 15 seconds or so. Then it has the happy "You have a message, happy happy joy joy" song it plays after I've missed whatever call it was.
Next time you're in a public place, just close your eyes and listen for electronic gobbledygook. It's pretty interesting. And, every so often you'll hear a snippet of some song you haven't heard in years, and then you can go download that and listen to the whole thing on Napster.
Like, Michael Jackson.

BTALD: Public Service Announcement?


So there was the squirrel incident, and then the duck incident - followed by the dishwasher incident, and then the carbon monoxide alarm incident which led to the water heater incident. Dang. If our life was a reality show I think it would be titled something like, "What the Hell is Going On?"
Anyway, here's a big scoop. Get this - you can get smoke detectors that also come with a handy carbon monoxide alarm in them. Right? Except there's this problem: See, smoke goes up. You know, up. The chimney. Up into the air. Up!
Carbon monoxide? It goes down. Like, close to the floor. Down.
So, for a carbon monoxide alarm to go off when it's near your ceiling, the amount of carbon monoxide that would have to be present in your house would be a whole lot, enough to ensure that you were quite dead.
This whole combination alarm thing now looks pretty dumb.
This may be why when the fire guys showed up and we told them we weren't sure what to do with this alarm going off, he said, "Have you tried throwing it out into the street and driving over it?"
I don't think the fire guys like these combo units.
Anyway, magically this PG&E guy appeared at our door, to check CO levels in the house - nobody's sure who called him. But when he opened the door to the closet where our water heater lives, he found that the exhaust pipe for it had corroded and fallen. Off.
Now, this would not give off carbon monoxide, but it's good to know nonetheless. So maybe the house set off the alarm to tell us, "Hey, over in this part of me -- something is messed up. Over here! Over! Here! Hey!" Like that.
Now that we've paid like triple time for the nice plumber to come put a new exhaust thing on the water heater on a Saturday (no hot water till we got this done you see), we're kind of keeping our heads low. Not low enough to breathe carbon monoxide, but low. Until the next incident.
So here's your friendly tip: Smoke detector high, carbon monoxide alarm low.
Until next time, this is your friendly cartoonist signing off until the next wildlife/appliance/alarm event.

Yike, they've invaded my fridge too.


Maybe I wasn't fast enough with the ice cream. They look like they're having a good time, though.

An Ipp has invaded my yard!




Yike. It's about 8 inches tall and it looks hungry. Perhaps I will offer it some ice cream.
If you've never seen an Ipp, they've got some cartoon strips here. They're small, they're punk, and they're made of felt - or used gum, or dough or something.

The Story of Stuff


I just watched a 20-minute video called "The Story of Stuff." It's worth a look. And Earth Day is a great opportunity to ponder how we got to the point where we're all entitled to cheap plastic crap at Wal-Mart. The biggest point I think the video makes: That the retail price of an item does NOT reflect the its true price. The true cost has been externalized by the corporation that made the item.

Our dishwasher broke this week, and even though we'd only had it two years, the repair guy posed the question of whether I wanted to fix it or replace it. And wouldn't you know, I did a little calculation in my mind as to whether I would feel "foolish" if I poured more money into this thing that clearly didn't work. I mean, why is that a question? Why remove a huge metal box from your house and send it out into the world if you don't have to?

Well, the dishwasher is getting a new part this week. I hope. In the meantime, hey, washing dishes by hand isn't that bad.



We're Rooting for Ya, Squirrel-Boy.



24 hours before the Duck incident, there was the Squirrel incident.

We've had weird scraping noises coming from the attic for some time now. I had kind of gotten used to them, until the other day when they were replaced with frantic flailing and screeching.

I peered into the intake vent at the end of my hall to see something like that scene in Star Wars, the one where there's that big sand-worm thing trying to eat people as they fall down into a big sandy pit.

Except in this case, it was a baby squirrel and a duct. The squirrel was malnourished I think, and it kept falling into this duct-throat-thing and then clawing its way back out.

So, I closed all the doors to one side of the house, opened a door to the backyard, got a broom, pulled the vent cover off, and waited.

Pretty soon the little critter came out and tried to run for it - except squirrels can't run on wood floors 'cause there's no traction. So it flailed around like the last-place finisher in the ice-skating championships as I batted it toward the door with the broom.

Eventually, after trying to tangle itself in the computer cables and backtracking a hundred times through my son's room, the squirrel exited the house and hunkered down next to the chimney.

My daughter took it a Ritz cracker.

We had to leave for a while, but when we got back the squirrel and the cracker were gone.

So, good luck, squirrel dude. I hope you find someplace more friendly to hang out. And if you see that duck, throw something at her for me.

Cat Butts Are Evil.


This cartoon, as you can probably tell by the lack of formatting, is on the old side - probably early 90's. But it does express a sentiment that I feel is relevant even today - the fact that cat butts are evil.
My cat's butt is the unforeseen toxic hazard of my home-based workplace.
Not long ago, my cat, who is middle-aged, lost the ability to swallow dry food properly. So, he now gets the gooey, byproducts-of-byproducts stuff. And whoooo-eeee, can that stuff produce some stench.
Sometimes, when I walk in the door, I know something is wrong. Something is lurking in the back of the house. As I get closer, it gets worse. Until I get to the study, where I am supposed to be able to think and draw and exist peacefully. Except that it is now the Land of Pew.
Dang. I open a window, and I try to remove the offending item as quickly as possible. But meat byproducts have really heavy molecules I think, so that awful stench just sits there.
I did not foresee my cat's butt as an issue in my career. But when the air is heavy and acrid, my thoughts just sit there like -- well, like a turd. It's awful.
Fortunately it's getting sunny out, so I can grab a sketchbook and head for the yard. Quickly. While the various byproduct molecules clear out.
I love the front end of my cat. Shoot, I love his sides too.
But his butt is kind of career-limiting at times.
So, I guess to keep working here I'm just gonna have to accept that being fast with a scoop is a job skill I need. Badly.



It's 3am, and your kids are... right THERE, lady!!!


Many of us as parents know that feeling when we momentarily lose our kid in a crowd, or around a corner... and we call out their name really loud, and everyone looks... it's not great.
However, when you are a duck, you have the added disadvantage that things like, say, getting more than 20 feet away from your ducklings can cause you total confusion. Even in the middle of the night when there's nothing else going on.
So, you call out for them. And, nothing happens. So, you call some more.
In fact, let's just quote the duck here:
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack."
Pause.
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack.
Splash. Flap around.
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack."
After about 30 minutes of this going on outside our bedroom window, I decided to investigate what drama might be unfolding in the creek beside our house. I put on shoes that looked really good with my PJs, got a flashlight, and headed out.
From my new vantage point outside, I could hear more of what was going on. It sounded like this:
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack."
(Somewhere up the creek) "Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep."
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack."
"Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep."
This was beginning to sound like:
"Come over here!"
"No, you come over here!"
"No, YOU come over HERE!"
Enough. I tossed a pebble behind the duck and startled her toward her kids.
Not far enough though. So she stood there in her new spot and yelled some more.
So I threw another pebble. I really really wanted to go back to bed.
This time she got further down and apparently found her ducklings. There was much cooing and peeping and stuff. Best of all, it was further away.
Satisfied, I headed back to bed.
As I drifted off I could faintly hear her going on and on and on - and as I fell asleep it started to sound like, "Don't you EVER wander off like that again! Don't you know you can get LOST out here? How am I supposed to FIND you! You stay next to me from now on, you HEAR?"
"Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack....."

She Shines

She Shines is a really cool publication by YWCA Northern Rhode Island that celebrates "the aspirations and accomplishments of women." I've been providing them with cartoons for some time now - here's the latest. While you're there, check out the rest of the features and archives. Lots of interesting and inspirational stuff!

A New Ipp Strip!

Hey this is neat - I'm posting this straight from my Flickr gallery! Anyway, here's the latest Ipp Strip which involves a stubborn candy wrapper. Click on it to see it full size!

Ipp-O-Rama



One of the things I'm liking about the Ipps is that they are so pliable. They are, after all, made out of some sort of squishy Play-Doh-like substance. So, they can squash and stretch to their heart's delight.

They are also pliable in terms of what they are doing. Which makes it possible for me to design Ipps for individual people. My four-year-old son designed this Viking:

Anyway, I'm starting to put together a new Store, on Zazzle. I wasn't happy with my old store's merchandise - the quality wasn't really as great as it could have been. And this is one of Zazzle's strong suits. So look for Ipp stuff to begin appearing in there. Shoot, I may even hand make some of these buggers. They look good in felt!

Drama.


This cartoon is a tribute to all those people we know who have more drama in their lives than the rest of us. And it's not because their lives are particularly more dramatic, it's because they know how to bring out the drama in pretty much anything.
We all know people like this - the people for whom a small blip on the radar means imminent galactic exploding traumatic disaster.
Come to think of it, we all probably trade off being this person.