Ph.D or Bust

Joe has been doing a lot of posts of late and while comical (pun intended), they haven't been much of an update about our family.

So, here is a list of some of the things going on in our neck of the woods:

Joe and I are graduating this semester with our PhD's.  (It may take a miracle.  Need I say, this is stressful.  We welcome any prayers on our behalf.)

Joe is on the job market (more prayers on this appreciated; I plan on staying home after graduating).

We experienced Lizzie's first case of croup.

We swapped Lizzie's room and the guest room to create a more convenient working space for Joe and I when Lizzie is sleeping.

We had Joe's brother John here for the weekend (he came for the comic forum).

I made my own laundry detergent and dabbled amateurishly in soap making with a Hobby Lobby kit.

We've both heard Lizzie count to 6, but she doesn't do it on demand so it's hard to say if it happened by accident.

Lizzie has slept in until 7 or 8 for 3 days IN A ROW.  This is unheard of for a girl who has woken up by 6 for about 99.9% of her young life.  Maybe she's having a growth spurt.  Maybe she's realized her parents need more sleep.  When I asked her if she was growing, she said, "No Jesus."  Not sure what that means exactly.  We have also asked her before if she had any dreams while sleeping and she answered, "No Jesus."  It is very fun to hear the things Lizzie has to say.

I'm sure there's more really exciting stuff happening in between dissertating, taking care of Lizzie, dissertating, eating, dissertating, sleeping, dissertating, doing church stuff, dissertating, having date night, dissertating, having "Lost" night (a dinner/TV night with friends) and dissertating.  I'll let you know when I think of it.

This was actually published

At the MSU Comics Forum on Saturday there was one presentation on government produced comics.  Comics that were usually either a how-to manual of some sort, were pure propaganda in war time, or which had some sort of safety message.  While government comics have created a character or two that have proven successful (Smokey Bear, for example), not every comic book character the government produced was a hit.   For example, Pip the Magic Safety Elephant never really took off.  And I, for one, cannot understand why his career apparently ended after one appearance.

Everything about Pip is delightful.  I particularly enjoy the pair of glasses on his trunk that are about a foot away from his eyes.  The costume is all kinds of awesome.  I also love the alliterative title The Perils of Pip Preventing Poisoning. 

And, as my brother John pointed out, the name "PIP, The Magic Safety Elephant" is ambiguous.  Is this an elephant teaching about the safe use of magic, or is this an elephant that can wield magic in a quest for safety? 

The government needs to resurrect Pip, for the safety of children everywhere.

At the University of Nebraska's website you can download an electronic copy of the comic, so I may feature Pip again if I get around to reading it and the content proves as fantastic as the very promising cover I posted above.

MSU Comics Forum 2011

For a few years now I've helped to organize the Michigan State University Comics Forum.  It's a two-day event that features a keynote speaker Friday night, and then panel discussions and an artist's alley (where comic book artist show off their work, do sketches, talk with fans, etc.) on Saturday. 

We've had a great run of participants, including several Eisner Award winners (think comic books Oscar).  I'll be giving a presentation on Saturday.  Everything is free and open to the public.  The artist alley is going to have a great mix of independent and mainstream artists.

This year's event is next weekend.  Here's the promotional poster by Ryan Claytor:

This one actually made me laugh

Generally when I see facebook memes I ignore them.  But when I saw one of my friend's products based on these instructions it made me laugh, so I figured I'd give it a go.  I'll post the instructions, then my result:

1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 - Use Gimp or Photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together. 5 - Post it with this text in the "caption."

I'm not sure which of the three elements I was most pleased with.  I mean, that photo is absolutely fantastic.  So that immediately gets an early lead in the "favorite element" race.  But I love the absurdity of a band called Fencing at the 1976 Olympics.  And that quote is just near enough to some angsty band's album title that it almost seems real but the seriousness is simultaneously a wonderfully humorous element in this cover art.  All around an enjoyable 10 minutes.

The Future is Awesome

One of the only things Emily and I have ever disagreed about is whether or not cars will ever drive themselves.  Sure there may have been something or other that we haven't seen eye to eye about, but nothing comes to mind.

I've always been firmly in the camp that cars that drive themselves while I read comic books in the former-driver's seat are inevitable.  Emily has argued that though the technology may reach that point,  the potential liability issues will prevent a car company from releasing such a product. 

Imagine my joy when I came across this opening sentence in a CNN article: "It's conventional wisdom in the auto industry, but the rest of us may be a bit shocked to find out that cars of the future likely will drive themselves."

Conventional wisdom was the phrase that leaped off the virtual page for me.  It's just accepted that this is inevitable. I believe that means I win this particular debate.

And seeing as how we are so harmonious on every other front, a 1-point lead may prove insurmountable for Emily.

The Evolution of the Batmobile

Stumbling upon things like this are what makes the internet so very amazing.  According to the disclaimer at the bottom, the images came from batmobilehistory.com (you just know that site is going to be a fantastic time waster based on the name alone) and this layout was put together by carinsurance.com.  I came across it at a comic book fansite called iFanboy.com.  The actual design of the layout is as impressive as the information contained, in my opinion (oh...by the way this is Joe writing, not Emily, if you had doubts).

My goodness that 1995 one is atrocious (the one with the gigantic fin).  What were they thinking?  Actually, the 1993 one might be worse...bad couple of years there.