This isn’t the sort of thing I signed up for. When I first opened up my e-mail and saw requests to “Moderate” comments by other users I was, frankly, shocked. No one ever told me that this sort of thing would require actual work. That’s not the sort of thing I signed up for.

Let me run down for you exactly what I was expecting in this deal.

1. Find an artist - check and double check (and hearty SUCK IT to all those a-holes who responded to my first attempt to find an artist on craigslist, I hope you all contract leprosy and your fingers fall off, but, ya know, in a nice way).

2. Write some strips - currently in progress

3. Make a million dollars - hey, it could happen…

No where in that plan is there room for stuff like, “read,” “click,” or “approve.”

And don’t bother pointing out that I could probably set the blog to allow comments automatically, or that doing so would take less time than it did to write out this complaint. I understand how user friendly wordpress is, OK? But I’m, obviously, lazy and if wordpress doesn’t use pshychic or voodoo like powers to intuitively know what I want then they have some functionality to add.

In an unrelated note, those wallpapers are the f-ing shiznit!

My presence has been, shall we say, minimal of late. Many reasons for this.

First and foremost, the daughter got chicken pox, then croop, then an ear infection all in the same month. Somehow during the most recent illness both mom and I also got sick.

As one of the more recent strips alluded to, I began school again.

Also, I started a new job.

Plus, it appears that Time Warner, under no circumstances whatsoever, wants me to give them money for cable tv and internet access. I have tried pleading with them, yelling, crying, I even offered to bake and Fed Ex them some cupcakes but all to no avail. They are dead set on never coming into my place of residence and installing said cable. My wife asked the other day, “Do we have a cable bill yet?” to which I replied, “What the hell can they bill us for, they haven’t provided any type of service.” Apparantly, they are content with heedlessly pushing back our installation date wily-nily. At this rate, I fully expect to have my cable modem installed sometime around April 2009.

Anyway, as a sort of piece offering for my flagrant absense I offer the following slice of internets goodness as a peace offering.

As any faithful reader should know, Gilgrim and April are “expecting” in the biblical sense.

So as the fateful day approaches, I thought it wise to regail the happy couple (and, by default, anyone reading this) with a bit of wisdom gained from 14 months of parenthood. And that bit of wisdom:

Parenthood ages you like nobody’s business!

On Thursday, I was having a rousing e-mail discussion with Mojo of Poor Mojo’s “various sundrys” about the ridiculousness of housing, particularly in the Golden State when said Mojo ended one of his replies with “tyvm.”

Now I was never up on the netspeak, but I could usually figure out crap like that, back in the day, say a year and a half ago, when I still felt some “connection” to the kids.

But that “tyvm” was so totally perplexing to me that I had to have Mojo translate. That’s how sadly out of touch I am.

Then came the weekend. MTV was playing a “So You Think You Can Dance” season 2 marathon all day Saturday and Sunday. Now I didn’t watch every single minute of the thing, but I certainly watched a lot more of it than, say, is healthy.

One minute to digress….let it be emphatically said that I do not, nor does my wife, or anyone even remotely connected to my house, watch Dancing with the Stars. The difference between the two shows might seem negligible to some. But one has B and C level celebrities with no appreciable appititude to dance or any dance related activity barely scraping through routines set to horribly contrived “renditions” of terrible songs that should in know way ever be accompanied by choreography. The other has actual, skilled DANCERS, performing actual DANCING, choreographed by good choreographers and accompanied by appropriate music. Can you guess which is which? Now, you may not appreciate dance, as is certainly your right. But my wife danced for 15 years, and it’s something that is taken seriously in our house (though, maybe not as seriously as, say, baseball or Premier League Football).

Do I think it is possible I would have watched so much “So You Think You Can Dance?” before I had a kid….well, I suppose anything is possible. But it certainly would have been highly improbable. Now….? The evidence speaks for itself.

So, be wary innocent expecting couple. You will find many changes occurring in your lives soon. Not all of them will sit well with the image you have of your former self.

I realize it isn’t really that much money. And, you know, 6.95 a month is certainly doable for me, at this point.

But when that’s the “monthly” rate only because it’s what the flat rate works out to when divided by 24, well, that isn’t really “6.95 per month” it’s 166.80 for two years.

Now don’t get me wrong. That’s a serious amount of hosting for a pretty good price…I just don’t have 160 bones…at least not for bills that aren’t totally necessary…and cable, you gotta have cable.

Hello to all!

I was planning on putting together something a bit more festive for today in honor of the winter celebration of the western sun god’s birth tomorrow. Unfortunately, I got hit with some less than stellar news today which made the whole idea of scribbling something festive-y not so attractive anymore. This makes the second piece of weird or bad news that I’ve been handed in the last 2 days. If the old rules still hold true then I’m sure I can expect one more piece of emotional-psychologically-draining-or-physically-debilitating shit to hit me square in the face before everything is said and done, and things start going back to a more enlightened form of multiverse-cosmic balance.

That said and in honor of my current feelings, here is a little something for the season of traitors and wrongdoers…

In special honor of those who seem to have spent the better or at least latter portion of this year trampling on trust, destroying a record of unrequited devotion, sacrifice, honor and basic civility. To those few who seem to have made it a special mission to attack and or endanger my family, my self, my work and my livelihood, as they say, ‘this one’s for you!’. It is my sincere holiday wish that Krampus was real and that he would show up individually to your doors tonight, flatulent you repeatedly, and painfully with his fist full of switches and carry you away sobbing, beaten, broken and bloody. He’s ready, he’s happy to do his job and he has no problem showing you what I think about you miserly, fucktards of despair, spiteful retaliation and selfish ghettoized sense of community responsibility. To you, slobbering, rancid cunts, Happy Krampus, may you receive nasty staph infections, IRS audits and street walker born STDs all!

To everyone else, you’re awesome, please do enjoy this winter holiday and unlike the previously mentioned twats, may you find happiness and comfort in your honorable deeds, the company of your friends and family and in the reflection of another year gone by!

I love you all (or at least those who shouldn’t have Krampus coming after them tonight),

–Aleister