Hidden Gem

A few weeks ago I made a pact with my wife. "Diana" I said, "will you make a deal with me? We have so many books that I would like to agree that until we have read all of them, each for their own books, we will not buy another book." And the surprising thing is, she agreed. I say surprising because, while I latch onto authors and buy all they have written, my wife will do that and pick up a random book after reading the jacket and deciding that, "It is only $4 so what the hey."

I love this about her but in the last year or so, her book buying habits have started to overwhelm our already bursting shelves. And she has a tendency to go for thicker novels which doesn't help things much.

The only problem with this agreement involves my book club. Once a month I have to have the book that we are reading, and as of late I have had luck picking books I already own but haven't read. Well, this month I wasn't so lucky and I need a copy of Richard North Patterson's Exile and Diana refused to let me buy it. Thus, I went somewhere I haven't been since I was a child...The Public Library.

Something snobby in me says, "Trinity, you don't need the library. You will just want to keep the book so just buy it." Well, I am now without that option and so I went to the public library today and opened an account to get my book and I must say, the Lewisville Library is nice. It was quite, had a wonderfully large area for children, and carried a decent supply of books. It isn't too large or overpowering and I was able to find Exile without any help which is more than I can say for some libraries I have been in.

And there were people there...at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning. I assumed it would just be me. So maybe I will give this library thing another try after I return the book I have. I mean, there is no way I will have all of my books read by next month and there is sure to be another book club meeting so I just may have to.

That is all,

Newt

"War "huh", Good God, What is it good for?" Winning

Sorry it has taken me a week to post this but I have been rather busy of late. So, in case you haven't done the math in your head or checked out CrazyNewt's blog, I won the blog war.

I just wanted to send out a heart felt "SUCK IT" to Dave over at Crazy Thoughts from a Crazy Newt...sorry, crazy Steve and as I listen to "We are the Champions" I think back on the fun I had with this whole war. Dave made a nice surrender of arms post and in all seriousness, had he not attacked me I wouldn't have made a new frienemy and got to read his funny blogs.

Now we will both go about our business, kind of like America and Russia did after that whole Cold War thing. Sure, I will be watching him like a hawk to make sure he isn't making side arms deals with some other blog in an attempt to stage some sort of terroristic strike on me, but otherwise we cool.

That is all,

The one and only Newt

A post about how cool web comics can be

I have been reading comic books since I was around 8 years old and it finally happened, I got mentioned in one. I began reading this awesome web comic strip called Heropotamus around January. It involves a little girl who sends Santa a letter saying, "I want a Heropotamus for Christmas", and that is just what she gets. The strip is very funny and rather clever as Heropotamus gets ready to battle his arch-enemy, Villianocerous.

Well, a few weeks ago we started a comment line that pretty much said, "What is Hero's catch phrase? Instantly, the comments were throwing out suggestions and I, of course, had a couple and one of them was deemed good enough to make it into the strip. Thus, I finally got mentioned in a comic.


You should all go read Heropotamus this instant. I can't wait until Josh Alves, the creator, gets around to making T-shirts so I can finally have my favorite water horse shouting his catch phrase, or more specifically mine.

The second web comic I stumbled upon came directly from Heropotamus because a guy named Jamie was always commenting on the Heropotamus site and it turns out he writes this really quirky comic called, "This is How We Met". It is hard to describe it exactly, but it involves a pony named Tony, a crazy doll thing that is named Mr. Izzy Goots, Humpty Dumpty, and a ton of other weird characters. It is like a mix of Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, and a little Calvin and Hobbes all mixed into one.

And, Jamie was having this awesome contest a few weeks ago where he quoted famous lines from classic children's literature and if you guessed the answer, you got awesome prizes. Below are the sketches I received for getting the correct answer of The Giving Tree on one of the posts.
A few days later I was graced with this awesome set of sketch cards. My favorite was the one below entitled "Wild Thing".


In all, I got 4 sketch cards and he was kind enough to doodle the characters from the strip onto the envelope, which is what you are seeing on the left and right of the dog.

The third and final comic I wanted to alert you guys to is called Axe Cop. It is about a cop who uses an axe to fight crime. He has a strange dinosaur cop partner and it is weird. It is written by a 5 year old. Yes, you read right, a 5 year old. His brother draws it.

You can definitely tell that it is written by a minor as it jumps from one idea to the next and the simplicity of the ideas brings about teh nostalgia of being a child. Other character include Unicorn baby, Sockarang, Baby Man, Leaf Man, and Wexter the T-Rex. The list of ridiculous characters can be found here. The whole thing is just a lot of fun.

So, go support the people I love to read so they will keep making them and I can keep reading them.

That is all,

Newt

Why can't life be like Mario Paint?

We are in the process of refreshing our house to put it up for sale, and in the process our realtor came by and told us what we should do to get it ready. He wanted us to paint and texture the kitchen, get rid of a wall of red that was in our bedroom, replace some door knobs, and touch up all the baseboards. So, we flew my dad in to come help me last Friday and Diana's dad came in on Saturday to help paint. We are almost done.

Here are a few things you can guarantee when I have to touch a paint brush.
1. I will complain.
2. Diana and Trinity will yell at each other at least once.
3. I cannot be trusted to handle a paint roller.
4. I will not be happy with the results.
5. Diana and Trinity will yell at each other at least twice.

Diana and I got into it pretty loudly last night for because of number 4 on the list. We have been having an argument that has these two sides.

Diana argues that the painting doesn't have to be perfect for us to sell the house. Her claim is that if we were looking for a house and weren't happy with the paint, it doesn't mean we wouldn't buy the house, and that buyers can just repaint if they don't like it.

My side of things goes of the premise of "Do unto others..." and I know that when I go to buy a house I really don't want to have to paint if we like the colors; I hope that the walls don't need to be retouched or corrected because the seller couldn't bring themselves to do a good job instead of a mediocre one. Plus the more we do to the house to make it as perfect as possible, the more likely it will sell quickly.

Who's right? I wish I knew.

I just want to be done with all this headache and get my house back in order so I can stop sleeping on the couch(this has nothing to do with our fight) and get back into my bedroom.

That is all,

Newt

Video Games Gone Wrong - The final battle in the War of the Newts

Well, we have come to the third and final post in the blog war of the Newts. After looking over my blog, go over to my enemy's site and then place your vote for who takes home the title. We are currently tied 1 to 1 so this is the one that decides it all.

The third war topic was "Video games gone wrong". What does that mean? Hell if I know! I wanted to discuss how the world was being reshaped in 16 bit gore and mayhem but then I was driving home one day and a random thought came into my head that caused me to laugh out loud. Then another. And another.

Thus, I pulled out my sick Photoshop skills and created a set of cartoons I will title "Video Games Gone Wrong". This may even become a recurring feature.






And one more time for my friend Lola.

Ribbit, Bitch.

Newt

Bored Games

I think I am broken. Somewhere in the last 10 to 15 years something snapped in my head and made a part of me stop working correctly. I didn't even notice, like gaining a single pound, it just happened. Such a miniscule thing. I can't win at checkers anymore.

I kid you not that I was amazing at checkers as a child. Maybe a checkers prodigy. I beat everyone and could see the moves that had to be made well in advance. I taught myself chess but never have been very good at paying attention to all the pieces and their movements. I enjoyed the undertaking and once in a blue moon I won, but checkers was always there saying, "Oh, that chess is too fickle. Come play with me," and I would.

A few years ago I saw a glimpse that something had changed. Erin and I played a game of checkers at a restaurant with a checker board that had no pieces. We used pennies and I lost! Multiple games! Lost!

I wrote it off as pennies not being a good way to play. I couldn't keep my pieces separate from hers because the only difference was we each used a side of the penny. I was confident that I was still a checkers champion. I WAS WRONG!

I have a iPhone app for checkers and play it all the time. I have won twice. I might win more if I was the first move, who knows, but the point is that I lost that spark that made me great. Where did it disappear to? Have you seen it? If you do, please send it back my direction.

I feel like I have been double jumped by a chimpanzee.

That is all,

Newt