Ratfarts!

In some cultures November 1st is the day of the dead. When spirits return to the Earth from the grave to visit their friends and family members. I’d believe it just from walking my netflix out to the mailbox a few minutes ago. It’s creepy out.

It’s warm for November, in the Mid-50F’s, and the sky just looks bleak and troubled. Like it hasn’t decided if it should clear away the clouds and have a sunny day or soak the land with a good cry in the form of a thunderstorm.

It just feels creepy, like there’s magic in the air. Something teetering on jumping out of the shadows and scaring you.

For me, today marks a new start for a lot of things. I admit that October was probably the most screwed up month in my history. I had to make a lot of changes, I missed a lot of things that were important to me (didn’t have much of a choice about them, sadly), and I was out of step all month.

October came in like a nightmare and I felt trapped in it, even at the midway point where things supposedly were going to get better. As I sit here wondering about November, the gloom of the day so far might mark and end to the funk and a bright new month filled with endless possibilities. Or it might just be another kick in the pants, but it’s not really for me to decide.

I could always escape into Lego Star Wars the Complete series (the first game in years that I actually WANT to play), what’s more important today is that I finish this shift and head back to bed. I have comic strips to write, a web page to salvage and a whole lot of foolin’ around.

Hope you’re there with me.

I’m sitting in my office at home waiting for the HughesNet repair guy to get here. It’s Wednesday, October 22, 2008. I have a cold, I’ve had 5 hours of sleep, I know I’m dehydrated and I really really really want my high speed internet back.

Last Friday we had roofers at the house. They promised me that my dish would be back up by 9am. Well, in roofer talk, “back up” means “haphazardly stuck to the roof, pointing in the general direction it used to point, without any sort of signal at all.”

A call to HughesNet proved what an idiot I was for believing the roofers. We were put on a very long waiting list and I had to somehow find a dialup provider in the 33 minutes I had between almost shooting the idiots and having to get my butt to work.

To anyone on dialup: I apologize. I’m sorry, I really am. As sucky and horrible a provider as HughesNet is (there’s no DSL or Cable up here in the mountains), it is a billion times faster than the 49.5k I’m allegedly connecting at now.

To the readers of my comic strip, let alone the Owned web site, I apologize as well. I can’t upload anything and I haven’t been able to do updates all weekend. It’s kind of difficult to do anything when your service DIES any time you try to upload or (dear god) launch two web pages at once.

Allegedly, this guy will be here today. Allegedly, all will be right in the world. Allegedly, I won’t get so frustrated that I’ll shoot anything that moves. Allegedly.

With all the problems over the weekend, you’d be surprised that I did get some things done. If I get my dish back up today, I’ll be launching all the comics I’ve promised for this week so you’ll have four comics (3 of them pretty new to you) over on Media Elite. The *daily* Owned Person of the Day will return as HEY! I can finally open Owned without a 5 minute delay between pictures.

Sidenote: If you want to contact me in Owned, please DO NOT leave comments on my pictures. For whatever reason, even with high speed internet, it takes 20-25 refreshes of an Owned page to actually SEE comments. So most of the time I never see them. If it’s important, please use regular facebook mail. I’m the only Jim Finch listed as Jim Finch on facebook so it’s not hard to track me down.

For those looking for my political commentary, again, apologies. I am a fan of the Presidential races. The whole strategy of what states are “more important” than others fascinates me. I get more worked up for the people I root for than I do for sports teams (especially this year with my Seahawks set to have a traditional 1-15 season!). I love the process, I love to TALK about the process and I end up alienating people who don’t understand that to me, it’s like watching sports.

Right now I’m amazed that John McCain seems to be throwing great resources into my state (Pennsylvania) even though he’s down 13 points in the polls. If you believe the nation-wide polling, he needs to win every swing state and turn at least one Democratic state in his favor to win. Pennsylvania has a huge number of electorial collage votes and it’s a prize, for sure. However, down 13 points with 13 days to go is an awful big number and it is amazing to me that everything could come down to my state this year.

But you’re yawning or rolling your eyes and it’s time to move on.

So, with any luck, things will be better today. This has been where I am now with everything and hopefully what will happen today. The alternative is shooting someone, which is going to be pretty hard since I don’t have a gun and think “guns are icky.”

But, I do have rubber bands. So just watch your socks, mister and missy!

Jim

Third Person Guy’s fantasy girl is Former Teen Starlet Singer Who is Now a Mess. Oh baby, baby. You know, the one from her first video. Clad in a school girl outfit, not-quite-18, big eyes that just call to you like a really bad painting you’d find at a flea market. Oh, so stimulating. He likes to think of the video while he works and wonders if that girl exists.

Instead, the girls that come into the shop seem to be like a modern Former Teen Starlet Singer Who is Now a Mess. Oh, how he hates that. Annoying Over the Hill Actress squak voice, huge thighs, 2 or 3 kids in tow with the father off making new babies with new women who probably don’t even know how many kids they have (nor probably do they care).

He gets angry about that.

Not that he’d do anything. Third Person Guy is quite a delicate thing. Well, in his own mind anyway. Wouldn’t hurt a fly and would tenderly place a bug out of harm’s way when a shopping cart threatens to crush it. Once upon a time he stood at a busy intersection and protected a lonely little spider for a half an hour just because it was lost and confused and didn’t have any where to go. Would have it been more humane just to stomp it? No, in his mind, by saving it he saved a piece of goodness in the world and the world needs as much goodness as possible these days.

Third Person Guy has his troubles. He doesn’t like people so they made him a manager at his store. He works in the back and only has to come to the front when Lazy Cashier Girl or Grandma Cashier Girl need a break. He gets through working the cash register with a fake smile but a true kindness that only the strange can appreciate.

He’s a weird one, that’s for sure.

These are his adventures.

We’ll see where they go.

Third Person Guy turns on his TV and sees Wanna Be Famous Slight Porn Star Chick on TV. She’s crying as the police put her in the back of a squad car and take her to jail.

To this, he feels sorry for Wanna Be Famous Slight Porn Star Chick. No one should be rounded up on TV like this and it must be hard on her family to see her crying in a squad car.

But then again, he thinks she’s over doing things a bit. Every time he has seen her on TV, Wanna Be Famous Slight Porn Star Chick is doing something calculated to make her even more famous. From faking her interest in people in crisis (on her low level cable network show), to “news events” around her “stolen” porn pictures, porn tape, lost dog, wonky eye, acting skills… it’s all a bit much to him to start feeling sorry for all the press she’s getting now.

He’s a simple guy. Sometimes she looks hot. Other times (like the tapes her her using the N word), she’s the most vile creature on earth. He tends to avoid watching or reading things about her because he doesn’t forget the facts. Plus, in his heart, he does wish he could be famous like she is — for simply showing up.

He thinks that unlike other celebrities, her tombstone will read: “Wanna Be Famous Slight Porn Star Chick — She Showed Up.”

It won’t carry on about her great (?) acting skills, her beauty (??) or her ability to be a British Princess Who Died level humanitarian (hey, she did give a homeless guy a sandwich on a TV show once and commented on his hotness), it will show off her one talent — she’s there. In front of a camera and getting more press for herself.

Third Person Guy frowns.

As people debate the whole issue of her jail time, he thinks to himself that this is probably all another ploy to make her more of a “star.”

That makes him sad.

He wonders if this is reflective of the world we live in and if pseudo-celebrities and pseudo-events like this will be recorded in history as the “great” events that they seem to be at the time.

Is this more important to the world than the holocaust, the War overseas, or the price of gas?

He sighs, turns off the TV and shakes his head.

He opens his door, takes a large breath of country air, feels the sunshine on his skin and goes on to take a much needed break from “reality” by sitting in the sun for a while.

Maybe that’s the reality the world needs right now.

Third Person Guy mouthed the words as he read them, “Someday you’ll find the right girl for you. I’m sorry, but I’ve …” as they trailed off into the usual blur while his heart broke again.

He scratches his head and wonders what he did wrong this time. The “it’s not you, it’s me” line obviously doesn’t apply as he’s in his mid-30’s and single and past the point of believing it’s someone else’s fault.

Break up letters in the internet age are no less hard than hearing it in person. They still hurt and make him wonder why he even turns on the computer to check mail. Call him old fashioned, but when a relationship ends, he’d always rather hear the voice and the emotions and the final goodbye in person. It’s easier, it’s final, there are no lingering questions left.

He ponders giving it up and entering the church. Then he remembers that most priests get more (albeit from underage alter kids) than he has in his lifetime. “Sorry,” he says to himself, “not even god can improve my sex life.”

He gets down. He probably shouldn’t. He had good times with the last Love of His Life Girl. The situation though, with great distance and other complications involved, had too much working against it to overcome. It hurts him to his core but he knows it was probably for the best.

For half a second he imagines himself doing the opening scene from the Really Bad Sequel to the Comedic British Spy movie. You know the one, spy’s wife is revealed to be a robot, she explodes, he celebrates freedom with a naked romp around the hotel they were staying at.

But really, no one wants to see that.

Third Person Guy wonders what’s next. Who’s next. Where life is going. Then stops himself after the headache hits. He fires up his Over Priced Video Game system and decides to escape for the rest of the day.

His adventures in that, at least, he can control.