hellomightydog

A few months ago, my hard drive bit the dust. I had a lot of important things backed-up, but a few items slipped through the cracks. One of which was a graphic novel I'd been writing. I have an older copy stored on my work laptop, but since the crash, I haven't opened it, fearful of discovering what little remains of my work.

It's almost time, though. I know I'm going to open it soon, maybe even today, and thinking about it has prompted a reinvigorated interest in good writing as well as an awareness of intent. There are two things I've "discovered" that promote my interest during the intake of media. It seems obviously silly when I type them out.

1. I like it when as a viewer/reader I'm dropped in the middle of a situation and my brain has to work to figure things out. This mirrors my attraction to conceptual art (not concept art), where there is a relationship between artist and audience. A shared understanding is created when both sides contribute, which is a more valuable payoff than "look at what I have made". The most engaging art is participatory.

2. Change has to occur to prevent the work from becoming stale. Like I said, this is obvious, but I need to write it out because I don't think I've ever successfully done it. In this rule subtlety is crucial. I've had a habit of setting up problems for my characters to work against and react to, but it's always right out front in big bold letters.

I just need to keep this stuff in mind.

Today feels like a Monday because I was out of town for a few days. I went to Orlando with Tamar and saw Jon, Morgan, Justin Peterson, and Animal Collective. I did not get to see Dav or Aaron. I bought some lamps. Tonight I'm going to some city an hour south of here with Shannon, then it's off to Jacksonville to watch her zip around a rollerskate track and to meet her mom. There were a lot of places I wanted to visit this summer and I have a suspicion I'm not going to see any of them. Hmf.

EDIT: I opened the script. I only lost 2/25 pages. YES.

So, Sunday morning I woke up at Jon’s place in Orlando. I kept waking up and going back to sleep, so I assumed we had slept in and it was late in the morning. I checked my cell phone, and it was just a few minutes before nine a.m. Well rested, I got up and did the morning internet thing, spending a particularly long time watching The Show with ZeFrank.

When everyone else woke up, there was a bunch of sitting around and deliberation about breakfast. We decided upon Einstein Bagels. Jon, Morgan, Josh, Rachel and I piled into Josh’s PT Cruiser and we were on our way.

We entered the bagel joint and stood in a short line. I wondered if the food on display was real food or not, so I touched a Danish and a little piece fell off in my hand. Real food, all right. Curiosity got the better of me and I put the small piece of frosted bread in my mouth. I remarked, “this tastes like a skeleton.” I ordered a spinach and mushroom omelet bagel-sandwich from a relatively flirty einstenian, who, no doubt, was ignorant to my skeleton-danish experiment. We ate, Jon got some free food, and we saw a guy who may or may not be a retired football player, who we named Tigerface Crenshaw. If you saw this guy, you’d understand.

Anyway, we go back to Jon’s and prepare to go to Hard Knocks. Hard Knocks is a laser-tag place and LAN center. The “weapons” are supposed to have a realistic weight to them, and they have two different maps, office and warehouse, both of which are fairly convincing.

After setting up our gamertag at Hard Knocks, we play a couple rounds. I’m not eliminated first, but I bite it in the warehouse in the first round. The second round was in the office…this was really fun. There were tons of hiding spots. The match was a lot more dependent on stealth, which I liked. Josh and I survived to the end of this match and won it for the team.

Now, here’s where the story gets interesting. The red light goes on outside of the armory, signaling another match. Jon, Josh, Rachel, and I go line up, and two strangers approach. One of them is a fresh-faced kid. Probably about 13. The other is this 6 an a half foot tall, overweight nerd. Here’s a graphic representation:



Anyway, we’re separated 4 and 2. The ref says, “Unless one of you guys comes over, it’s going to be 4 on 2.” Josh starts to step over to the other team, and douchenerd says,

“No, no man. Don’t worry about it. This is almost my hundredth game. I don’t want it to be unfair.”

So we head into the armory and Jon says what we’re all thinking. Take out the douchenerd.

We suit up. Jon and Rachel grab the long-range weapons. Josh and I grab the lighter guns and we maker our way into the warehouse. The match starts and Josh and I move in, like Sam Fischer or Jack Bauer or whatever. I like to think of myself more like Tony Almeda, but I digress. Douchenerd sees me from across the map and gets a clean shot on me. I move a little lower and get out of his range of vision. Things are quiet for a minute or two. When Josh and I are about halfway through the map, I peak my head round the crate I’m hiding behind and douchnerd is looming over me, as surprised to see me as I am to see him. We fire at each other, he hits me again. Instinctually, I run, ignoring the strict no running rule. The ref yells “NO WRUNNING” at me, but fuck it. I’m not going to let this douche damage my pride. I spot a crate. Thinking like an action star, I decide to dive behind the crate, end goal being on my back on the ground, waiting for douchenerd to round the corner. Diving becomes tripping becomes falling. I hit the ground hard and feel a throbbing in my ankle. I scoot back to the crate and wait for douchenerd to round the corner. He never does. Jon breaks his cover by yelling, asking if I fell. I yell back yes and he starts laughing, loudly. I hear a recorded scream emit from a gun down the field, signaling the ejection of one of our opponents. I get on my belly and crawl around the crate for a peak. It’s freshface! The kid somberly walks off the field. Douchenerd, despite his immense size, is attempting to sneak down a wall in an open area…like a kimodo dragon that thinks he’s a chameleon. Then, Jon does something awesome. He yells,

“All right! Everyone move in! We got him!”

I watch as my team becomes erect, just walking towards and shooting this asshole. He can’t fend them off, and they have him within seconds. I climb to my feet and awkwardly limp towards the exit, trying to not validate the ref who yelled at me for running. After a couple minutes I realize I hurt my ankle pretty bad. Douchenerd comes over to us and attempts to be friendly, but I’m pissed about my ankle so I just sling insults at him. The group follows suit and he goes away.

By the time we get back to Jon’s, it’s hurting pretty bad. Josh and Rachel hook me up with some drugs and crutches. I call Whitney to see if she can pick me up earlier than the 10 pm leavetime we agreed upon, and she says yes. She shows up at about 9:30…which, by then, it didn’t really matter, I guess.

That’s pretty much it! I was getting around on crutches for most of the week so far, but I can now kind of hobble around without them. I’ll be back by next week, I think.

This weekend was...interesting. Here's a rundown.

I arrived at my buddy Justin's work in Brandon on Friday afternoon, got a tour met his boss and hung out for a bit. We went to the Resort where the Orlando Comic-Con was to check out the scene. Everyone was still setting up. Justin's booth was nice and large. We didn't really have a whole lot to set up, so we just brought in our stuff and hung out. After a dinner at the Orlando Ale House, we made the track back to Brandon and chatted a bit before bed. I was offered the opportunity to have their four cats locked up in a bathroom, but I made the choice to let them roam during the night. Two kittens played with my feet in the darkness, while an older cat settled in to sleep between my legs. I grew up with dogs, and for the past couple of years, barring one ridiculously mean and aggressive dog, I haven't had any. So it was nice to recall that night time activity, even if it did wake me up a couple of times.

I woke up naturally the next morning. After some quick showers Justin and I headed out to the convention. Things seemed busier early on. A lot of people showed up to the table throughout the day, taking free comics. I didn't sell any shirts...I came pretty close once, though. Justin was doing these insane sketches all day. He drew a pretty sweet Gambit in the morning...later in the day, some guy came up and wanted to buy it. Justin asked for $10...the guy talked him down to 5, but then requested a lobo sketch, and told Justin that he'd give him $20 for both. This dude made out like a bandit. For some reason, Justin decided to draw his entire body, and put an hour and half's worth of work into this ridiculously detailed sketch.

Anyway, after the con, I met up with Jon and Morgan, and we all went to the Hard Rock cafe. Before we ate, we (mostly me) were/was doing really silly dances in front of the cafe. I was persuaded to move the sillydancing to a broader open area...and this, like, four year old kid followed suit. Our table was ready, so I ran inside. The meal was...decent...but expensive. The service sucked, the food was overpriced, and halfway through the meal they brought us these little pamphlets to show what the had in their store. I'm still kind of shocked at how fucking ballsy they are. The food was on par with Outback Steakhouse and not only is it more expensive, but they drop these adverts on your table halfway through the meal? Fuck a bunch of that.

After dinner, Jon, Morgan and I said our goodbyes to Justin and his crew and headed back to Jon's house. I'll post part two of my weekend later today.

Let's discuss this past weekend with the aid of some photographs.

( Behind this cut are 20+ photos from my trip to Orlando. )