Now that they've stupidly killed Veronica Mars, I have no reason to watch the CW at all! I'm sort of a valuable demographic- 35 years old, college educated, gainfully employed, respectable household income (some of which is more or less disposable), kids, etc.; but whatever. They don't want me to watch, I'm cool with that. I own four TVs and also watch shows on two computers, but not one of those things will ever need to be tuned into the CW anymore. Nice!

I'm very excited because after this disastrous TV season, I've been able to gain so much valuable time. Of the shows that I still watch (and there aren't many), Veronica was the best. I'm still hanging with Lost. I gave up 24 four episodes ago and good riddance to that silly shit. I also gave up Gilmore Girls this season, and now that one's dead too, so I guess I wasn't the only one. It wasn't really bad this year, it just wasn't the Girls anymore, so out it went. I love Battlestar Galactica (and I have a project in the works for that- STAY TUNED), but I watch that one in three or four hour blocks because it seems more like a movie that way. The Venture Brothers was awesome, but the second season ended a long time ago. I claim to love all the NBC Thursday comedies, but I find I only really watch 30 Rock regularly, and I often let the others fall off the TiVo before I get around to them. I got hooked on The Unit for a while, because I liked President Palmer and the fancy military shit, but the writers have run out of good black ops stories so they started concentrating more on the wives at home, and those chicks are unbearable harpies. Terrible. I liked that sketch comedy show on VH1- Acceptable TV, but who knows if that's coming back. The Sarah Silverman Show was fun. Aaaaannnd... I think that's about it. Daily and Colbert sometimes when they're on.

Well, that means that on any given week of new programming, I'm committed to maybe two and a half hours of TV that is worth my time. That's an all-time low! Nice work, networks!

Damn you're fine, Veronica Mars.
R.I.P.

Tags: Veronica Mars Kristen Bell T.V. Venture Brothers Pretty Girls Pictures

Fresh and new! Smells like a shoe! It's a new theme!

Not going to lie here people, I've been down in the dumps a bit lately. Lots of circumstances contribute to this, not the least of which is the goddam weather. But, today we have had lots of sunshine and it seems like spring is finally fucking here. Fuckin' A. The continual grayness of each day just grinds on me like a crackhead table dancer two dollars short of a fix. It's relentless.

WHOOPS! I should warn you- this entry may include some swear words because I feel like swearing a lot for no real reason. Little late on the fucking warning you say? Well fuck me! You're fucking right. I'm totally sorry about that! Totally fucking sorry!

AAAHHHH.... that's better.

Sad news that I was belatedly made aware of via Entertainment Weekly a few weeks ago- the singer for Boston, Brad Delp, killed himself. I'm sure I would have heard this much sooner if I hadn't given up on classic rock radio years ago. But late as it is, it is sad news nonetheless. The first CD I ever purchased was Boston's first self-titled disc, and back then CD's cost like 25 bucks, so that was a major commitment. That dude sure could wail.

Happier news- we've had some very productive meetings with various doctors and county representatives in regards to Casey's autism, so we're feeling good about that. Soon we'll know more about what hoops we're gonna have to leap through for school and therapy and stuff. More info later.

Did anyone catch the last 30 Rock? The main gag of the episode was a running Cleveland joke; Liz was considering moving here with her new boyfriend to get away from the pressures of New York. Usually these things are just mean pokes at our little town, but 30 Rock went the other way with it- making us look so ridiculously great that, if you didn't know any better, you'd wonder why everyone didn't want to move here. "We all want to flee to the Cleve!" It was very funny and kind of sweet. One of the writers on the show must be from here because they seemed to know an awful lot of tiny details, although I don't think they'd spent a lot of time here recently as there were several references to how great the clubbing is down in the Flats, which as everyone here knows is nothing but a crime ridden, giant river rat infested empty shell of what it once was years ago (the new Flats is the warehouse district). It was an awesome tribute in spite of some tiny dated details, however. If you guys haven't seen 30 Rock, please do- it is a great sitcom. By the hammer of THOR!

Speaking of hammers, I just found my good one in the basement and it MADE MY FUCKING DAY. I'd broken a whole bunch of shitty hammers fixing the fence that I installed last summer (incorrectly of course, hence the fixing part). I couldn't find the good one, and it was very distressing. That hammer has been passed down to me from my father, and to him by his father before. It's magic and ancient and nigh-invulnerable. In fact, if I'd had that hammer when I put up that fence, I'm certain I would have done it right the first time. It's that powerful. It would prevent me from stupidly hanging a fence fucking backwards.

And oh, Venture Bros. Season 2 on DVD. People- I can't stress this enough- this show is the motherfucking balls.



I leave you with my latest religious-themed license plate find. I shot this on the freeway this morning on the way to work. Since I can't look through the viewfinder of the camera while driving (that would be very unsafe for me and other drivers!), I just had to point in the general direction of the car and shoot like a hundred pictures. And, since I wasn't sure that I'd gotten a good one using that method, and I wouldn't be able to check until I was safely stopped off the freeway somewhere, and if I did wait to check and I didn't get the shot I'd have missed any opportunity to get the shot again, I decided the best thing to do would be to run this car off the road and just get the picture while they were flipped upside down in the ditch or smashed against the retaining wall. As it happens though, one of the shots I got on the road worked out best anyway. Hooray!

Tags: Internet T.V. Venture Brothers Swearing License Plates Pictures

The following link is a spoiler for the current half season of LOST, but not for last night's episode, the week before's. There's this sequence that's all super messed up and scary, and some genius posted a video of it in reverse and fancy new details are revealed! Even if you don't watch LOST, but like scary messed up things, you should watch it anyway.

SCARY AND INFORMATIVE!!!

Tags: T.V. Internet

"Waaa! My baby doesn't sleep and I'm miserable! Waaa!" I'm shaking my head disapprovingly right now. Not at you, but sort of about you. You know, like behind your back to all our mutual friends. Because I'm a parent, and while I won't go saying I know everything (like anyone could know everything- c'mon!), I will say that I know that you're doing everything wrong. Oh man- if I shake my head disapprovingly any harder it will flop right off my neck.

Look- my kids- BOTH OF THEM- totally make it through the night until eight in the A.M. without a peep. Perfect angels! Maybe you just need to let that baby scream or something- he/she will fall asleep eventually. That's what we do and look at me... fresh as a daisy and smelling like a cool autumn breeze. And did I mention chipper? God DAMN I'm chipper. You can't see it, but I just did a back flip. That's right. I smell so fucking awesome you wouldn't believe it! It's a healthy, well rested musk I exude. God I love exuding musk! I've gotten so many nice compliments from breathless passers-by. Passers-by in these parts know a good thing when they smell it, and they aren't afraid to tell you all about it. Credit where credit's due and all that. I smell so frickin' good!

COMPLETELY UNRELATED SUBJECT- by some miracle my kids both decided they like sleeping all the way through the night and I only had to get up one time this whole week and that was for only like fifteen minutes. Also, I'm in a short lull freelance art-wise. The long and short is that I got a whole week's worth of solid shuteye and general me-time for the first time in... wait for it.... here it comes.... TWO YEARS. Give or take a month or so. Wow. Wow. Wow. Can I get a Wow? Wow. And I've hardly been kicked or kneed or stomped square in my balls by twitchy babies for almost seven days now. WARNING to all the new dads out there in Tronville, your balls are going to be violently abused by your twitchy babies. They love nothing more than jumping on your fucking balls. Fuck man, I wish I could tell you your balls are going to be okay, but they won't. I'm so sorry. About your balls.

I really seriously considered using my evening freedom me-time to make a couple posts here and shit like that, but I opted to go the super selfish route and rent some movies. Now, I have actually rented a few movies in the last couple years, but what happens is that I go into Blockbuster or wherever and can't decide what I want to see since I haven't seen anything in, well, two years; so I end up renting three movies thinking I'll find time in the forthcoming week to watch all of them. Then I end up returning them four days late and unwatched. Maybe I watch one, but usually I have to spread it out over three or four days in small segments. The horrible irony is that I half-assedly watch my segmented rental DVD's in this elaborate and fantastic movie theater in our basement I spent a lot of money and years of effort on. Now it serves mostly as high-tech romper room for toddlers to watch Elmo and Oscar and Big Bird. Seriously, what the hell happened? I had a lifestyle at one point.

Saturday I rented three movies. I've already seen them all! AND- not one singing puppet in any of them. As a bonus, two of the three were damn fine pieces of grown-up entertainment. One was a piece of shit (Domino), but on a certain level I enjoyed it anyway, because that was freedom shit I was watching.

Speaking of testicle abuse like I was before, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is highly enjoyable, even the ball shocking torture bit. I may be sort of desensitized to that though.

Tags: Kids Good Times T.V. Movies

We go on vacation this coming Saturday! Whoop! That means that there will be a work related disaster that will happen about 3:30 on Thursday. Awesome! Can't wait!

Our Destination: Same place as always- the starkly beautiful and increasingly pricey Outer Banks of North Carolina. Thing about the OBX though- sure, rentals cost kind of a lot, but there's not much else to do there except hang around. So it's not like you're going to spend a fortune after you get there, by the time you get to your rental house or whatever you've already spent 90% of the money you're going to on your vacation. It's a terrific place. Maybe I'll get all poetic about it in a future entry, but I still have a week of The Suck to go first, so I don't want to get all wrapped up in it just yet.

I will tell you this though- we are yuppie scum. Like, more so than before. We did something I swore I wouldn't do and bought a friggin' DVD player for my car. Two screens, the works. I've even got the sound running through my car stereo, so it's BOOMY! and DYNAMIC! in there like a movie theater. All so my kids can watch Blue's Clues and Laurie Berkner videos on our road trip. God DAMN I'm gonna have spoiled kids. Growing up I was lucky to have a spot in the car with a seat belt when we went places. No lie- I rode in the back of my folk's old Ford Pinto (the station wagon, not the hatch back) with the dog to New York one time because she used to get anxious in the car and somebody needed to rub her ears so she wouldn't bark until she threw up. Good times! Actually- those really were good times. I'm not just saying "Good times!" when the times were clearly not good for hilarious comedy like usual. Anyway, I'm just a set of those stupid giant spinning rims away from rolling like those hip-hop rapper superstar type people you folks are so fond of, like Hammer-Time or the guy who did "Who Let The Dogs Out? WHO?--WHO WHO WHO?" I don't know why you like that song so much, it's totally gay. Everybody hates it when you put that CD in at all our parties.

There's links for some people over there on the right. I totally read all these blogs all the time, like constantly. That's why it takes me so long to post things here, because I'm so busy reading all these other blogs. Naked*.

Oh- and HA! I have some funny new family style drama to post about later. And it will be later, 'cause I got to GO.

Tags: Good Times Travel Kids T.V.

I'm guessing that everyone who is a fan of the Venture Brothers used this title for a blog entry this week. All the true fans anyway, the lame poser fans probably had something original and witty in their titles. Trying to make me look bad. Worse, I mean.

Something terrible has been happening to me the past few months, a sign of aging that I'm not sure I'm ready to face. I've been getting acute indigestion almost every time I drink beer. Third of the way through a Bud or whatever and heartburn detonates, I end up chewing Tums for the rest of the night. I think this is "The Change" that I hear people talking about. I'm much too young and pretty for this to happen now! I was planning on many fertile drunk years before The Change left me barren and sober! THIS IS NOT FAIR. I refuse to admit my good years are behind me. This isn't the end of the road- it's just a new beginning! Maybe I'll take up whiskey.

There is hope- today I've eaten three doughnuts and now I'm going to get a cheeseburger. Feeling like a million bucks. I think everything's going to be okay.

We still have tiny humans here!

Tags: T.V. Venture Brothers What? Pictures Kids

There's a big pile of things to see in the "Commercial Art" section of bitmatt. There will be more, but that's the stuff I've gotten to so far. I figured out how to make the cool slide show pages today!

ALSO- totally false alarm on the Pox thing. Nobody's got Pox- I REPEAT- no Pox.

ALSO #2- I'm pimping The Venture Brothers again on Cartoon Network at 10:30. BELIEVE IT.

Tags: I Am Professional Bitmatt T.V. Venture Brothers

Just wanted to say that you all should catch The Venture Brothers tonight, the premier of season 2. It's on Cartoon Network at 10:30 EST. You will be entertained like infinity percent times ten. And after you've seen it and feel you weren't entertained, you actually were and just don't know a good time when it squeezes your ass while standing in line at the methadone clinic. [winks] [shakes] [sweats a little]

Anyway, I can't recommend this show more highly than that, as you can tell. If you don't see it tonight, they'll repeat it. Oh yes my little prairie dogs, they'll repeat.

Tags: Venture Brothers T.V.

I totally have no work to do this evening. Yup, just gonna take it easy, kick back, maybe finally post an entry here. After, of course, I get dinner for the kids. Then I have to walk the dog because we don't currently have a yard for him TO POOP ON (news on that in a moment) and get him dinner. Then it's bath time for babies, followed by playtime in their room and then getting them settled for bed. Then I have to water the non-yard (in a moment I said!) and walk the dog again because he refuses to pee in the driveway. Yup, just gonna do nothing and HOLY SHIT IT'S 10:45 AT NIGHT ALREADY MY GOD HOW DO I EVER GET ANYTHING DONE EVER??!?!?

I am the sort of person that rents movies and returns them unwatched because I never got around to it. King Kong sits on my dining room table, taunting me. You know how primates taunt, right? They fling their turds at you. Kong taunty-turds are big enough to knock over grain silos. I'm running out of silos! Dammit monkey!

Looks like I'm going to be a suburban slave. You might know what I'm talking about- those poor bastards who spend hours a day watering and preening their stupid grass on their postage-stamp plot of land so it is more lush and green than their neighbor who is out doing the exact same thing. I swore that I would never become beholden to my lawn because I hate yardwork and I hate keeping up with the Joneses and I'm allergic to all that's green and flowering. But now we have this brand new lawn coming in that I had a landscaping company install partially out of shame, since we had maybe the worst burnt up weedy mess on the street, and partially out of desire to have someplace where the kids could play without getting shredded up by thorns and nettles. Every day I've got my garden hoses and my sprinklers working early in the morning and late in the evening, the symbols of my new indenture to the tiny bright green filaments that are starting to pop out of the muck. I can't stop sneezing. I don't plan on being able to do this as well as most of my neighbors who are all retired and have nothing better to do all day than make their lawns glisten like perfect fucking emeralds in the noonday sun. I must say I'm making lots of friends though. I think it must be like this for women after they have a baby, it's like they've joined some exclusive club and suddenly are friends with all the other mommies and have so much to talk about. I stand out front with my hose in my hand like the chain around my neck it is and wave to all the other jackasses who will also be watering their lawns every day until they drop. I don't like these guys at all. But I can't stop watering, the grass will die!

Baxter can't touch his back yard, let alone pee on it, for like weeks. I've got a run set up in the driveway for him, but that isn't sitting well at all. He sulks all day. {Frowny face goes here.}

Happy! FINALLY my Venture Bros. Season One DVD's showed up from Amazon! They were held up in shipping, and it was just killing me. I will make time to watch these- life can go on hold for a while. This and Veronica Mars are the first teevee shows I've thought enough of that I needed to own them. I'm considering buying Battlestar Galactica too, but probably not. It's fun to watch and all, but I don't think I'll get that much more out of it through repeated viewings. I was really amazed at how much more I caught watching Veronica Mars' first season again knowing the eventual outcome. That show is amazing. Plus I have deep, sticky feelings for Kristen Bell. I was so relieved to learn that she's a 20-something that only plays a teenager on TV, because for a while there I was feeling guilty about the filthy, awful things that I was thinking about her and what I made the naked voodoo puppets I fashioned in our images do. Those puppets- they're insatiable.

Ooooh- in that world where there are no pants and I AM KING OF ALL I SURVEY.

Alternate caption #1: VOODOO!

Alternate caption #2: guh whoaa momma

Anyone heard this song by B.R.M.C.? It's The Balls.

Yes AMY, my kids are fronting an indie rock band. Actually, the fact is that I cut some of their hair like a year ago and by Becky's reaction you would have thought I'd chopped off their fingers. I totally didn't! It was just some hair! Jesus- never again. They will be some shaggy lil' devils.

Tags: Pictures I Am Professional What? Kids Movies Tunes T.V. Veronica Mars Kristen Bell Pretty Girls

Must make quick- very tired, somewhat drunk, need bed soon. Things need updated, here we go.

Cavs finally lost to Deee-Troit! basketball team in a seven game struggle. Awesome- I had a great time watching basketball this year, and the future looks bright.

My Bettie and Will finally had their baby after a weekend of collective held breathing. Big problems, but all's good- go look at this thing if you like baby pictures. I hate baby pictures.

I've been unusually busy, and the kids have not been respectful of my time this week. Sleep back to brutal after weeks of making it until 7 a.m. every night for a month. Dad not happy, kids don't care- still cute. Jerks.

This unusual busyness, it's good, but also bad. See, this is supposed to be my slow time- my sit back and watch the checks roll in time. No- BUSY. And I know that my traditional busy season is coming. It'll be graphic design crazy go nuts soon! I can only sit here and sigh. SIT... SIGH

I just watched the last Harry Potter movie- what was that? Goblet of Fire? Think so. Anyway, I really deeply enjoyed it. Very good movie. Best yet, they've finally got that thing down. Still won't read the books, that's for queers.

I opted out of Soupy's Wetpaint mod thing. I was really serial about the LeBron James site, which I think could be very fun if done right, but I just plain don't have the time. I think I probably could've done some simple shit and strung her company along for a while to squeeze a few checks, but I'd feel just awful about it. They're doing nice things with our interweb over there and I don't want to screw with their flow. Chainsaw is still the smelliest girl in Smellytown though. I saw it in National Geographic two years ago- the Smellytown exposé. Those guys won awards for that stuff, but at what price? Is an award enough for the grieving widow and three small children (one of whom is crippled or someshit) of the Smellytown story photographer who lost his battle with nose cancer? Is that going to bring that poor guy back? No. No it won't.

Veronica Mars will be back next season! That brings so much excitement to all parts of my being, especially the shameful ones.

Tags: What? Kids Pictures Movies Pals T.V. Sports Internet

Tonight during 24 I saw the new ad for the Nissan XTerra. They're using "Set You Free" by local band (well, Akron, that's close enough) The Black Keys for the background music. Nice!

Quick Black Keys story- the band is comprised of two regulars, the singer/guitarist and the drummer, who is the gangliest motherfucker ever. That freak can play the hell out of some drums, so more power. Anyway, the guitar guy is sort of average looking, nothing special. Before they got signed he'd been dating his high school sweetheart for several years. After signing some record deal and a European tour later, he comes back with a Dutch (French? Whatever) lingerie model. My brother-in-law, who used to fix guitars for them, asked him what was up with that? He said, "Dude- I'm famous in Europe!"

Tags: Tunes T.V. Good Times

Can't wait to get the folks going to the goddam trade show next week on the friggin' plane. Art department is BRUTAL before these things, and this has been a back-to-back. After I help with bath night and get the kids to bed I've gotta go back in again. Might not make it this week. I'll sure make a pretty corpse, though.

Anyway, this morning on NOGGIN the best Blue's Clues ever was on- the one where Steve does his Elvis impression for the last ten minutes. He knocked that shit out of the park! Instant "Save Until I Delete" status on TiVo. We will never delete.

Someday the kids will see some old Elvis footage on the History Channel or something and ask, "Hey- who's that guy ripping off Blue's Clues Steve? He sure is fat!"

Tags: I Am Professional T.V.