Season 1 of the TV show is finished! Resolved! Concluded! Finalized! Accomplished! Achieved! Realized! Completed!

Now watch it!

Episode 6 – Part 1: [link]
Episode 6 – Part 2: [link]

Our Monty Python tribute encore extra episode!
Episode 7 – Part 1: [link]
Episode 7 – Part 2: [link]

This show kept me busy. Very busy. So busy in fact, I’m now starting on that comic strip I said I was going to start two months ago. Well now that the crew has some ample acting experience and hands on with the camera equipment, we’re going to now make an independent film.

Also in art news, just making small stuff, practice sketches, stuff, things that more or less won’t see the light of day. And the comic strip is finally being started on.

Also, and I’m still thinking about this, I’m considering getting the new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. I’ve seen it in the local Staples store, and it’s very impressive. Nice abrasive surface, and 16:9 ratio. I will admit ever since I got a wide screen, the Intuos 3 is frustrating because I have to deliberately distort my drawing, so it comes out correctly on the screen. (i.e. Any horizontally drawn line gets exaggerated and stretched further than it should.) If anyone knows how to get around this, I’ll thank them very muchly.

So if I do get the Intuos 4, then I’ll have a spare and used Intuos 3. And I’ll be seeing if someone would like to have it. Tablets are great to have.

Also, I'm sketching out pictures to use in the conquering art block tutorial. So stay tuned.

And that’s a wrap!

Yesterday an event occurred while visiting the doctor’s office that really made me see just how health insurance really is in shambles. And why the idea of Universal Healthcare really is gaining real ground. I’ve heard both sides of the issue, why it’s good, why insurance is better, why universal healthcare is socialism in disguise, and how we should change our stars and stripes flag to include the hammer and sickle if it were to ever happen…

Well… read on, and maybe you’ll agree it’s not such a bad idea.

Yesterday my spring allergy problem went epic, and physically halted me from working in the office. I mean, flat out, stopped me from working. Not to be too graphic, but I was a disaster. Scratching my eyes, itchy throat, nose on catastrophic meltdown… and none of the over-the-counter medicine was working. It’s like every year, either I get more immune to all the anti-histamine drugs, or the drugs become worse. Based on previous experience, I think it’s the latter. No tin-foil hat required.

The only medicine that worked for me in the past was the 12 hour Chlor-Trimeton tablets. They worked great. Now, it seems like it was discontinued and replaced with this 4 hour version which doesn’t even work at all for me. The proof? Follow this link. It’s not just me who saw this happen… [link]

Anyways, so, no medicine’s working, I’m going out of my mind, and it finally clicks, I need to see a doctor and get some kind of octane-powered prescription medicine.

So I call up my doctor’s office and want to schedule an appointment. The soonest the doctor can see me, is Friday, next week. That’s the first problem… 10 days in advance is when I can see a doctor about a problem I’m having now. Maybe if I stick a flower in my nose, I’ll be ill for the required 10 days so I’ll still be gagging when I see the doctor…

Okay, bad joke aside, my town is fortunate to have a walk-in treatment clinic. I call up my insurance provider and luckily enough, I’m covered by it. That’s the second problem. I was lucky to be covered. The walk-in clinic was approved by my insurance! Oh praise be! …and what if it wasn’t covered?

So then I walk in, and have to fill out a form and insurance information, and after 10 minutes, hand it back in. They take my insurance card, which they then have trouble authenticating me. I’m half expecting a $200 bill, when after 5 minutes locate my Blue Cross info and cover the visit. $20. The doctor’s visit was quick and fast, explaining all the drugs I’ve taken without success. He recommends I try the only one I haven’t taken yet, Zyrtec. I almost said something when he then said in addition, to get a prescription for Nasonex. Finally, something that may just work!

So I head across the street to the pharmacist, and this is where the real fun began. After waiting for about 30 minutes for an already pre-packaged box of nose-spray, they bring it to the counter, and charge me the full price of the medicine, $150. I showed them my insurance card, which they then attempted to authenticate me for the next 20 minutes. For some bizarre reason they were unable to authenticate me into the system, and came back to the counter asking for the full amount. I handed it back to them requesting they try again, to which they then replied, “We’re sorry, but they’re closed.” Un…believable.

Outraged I handed it back, requesting someone else help me, asking that they call the Blue Cross number directly. After another 20 minutes of back and forth nonsense, I can hear the insurance person on the phone yelling at the pharmacist, the pharmacist saying the information they’re giving them is incorrect, the line behind me getting extremely impatient, FINALLY they authenticate my information. They then give me the drugs at the correct amount.

And that’s the third problem. I had to wait over an hour… for nose spray, due to erroneous information from the insurance provider. I then go home and relax by taking the drugs, and playing violent video games for the remainder of the night.

So to recap:

• I can’t see my primary doctor about an immediate problem and see a completely different doctor
• An already extremely limited pre-approved set of doctors and locations to choose from
• Ridiculous and asinine procedure to get the friggin’ drugs from the pharmacist...

And Universal health care is a bad idea? Really?

Another year treks by as I age again. 25 years now... god I'm getting old.

I celebrated kind of early, as I took my brother up to Boston. We drove up early on Saturday morning, and we went to several places, including the Sam Adams brewery. Free beer is made of awesome, and I'll drink to that.

Then we hit up the Union Oyster house, and had some fish and more beer!

Then that night we went to Fenway park and watched the Red Sox beat Baltimore 6 to 4!

Fun times.

In art news, I'm doing some pictures on the side, as I haven't posted anything in a while. After I'm done with these side projects, I'm going to put up my second comic strip that I've been working on and off with. It's made of funny, like the first strip I made.

Also I think I finally figured out how CSS works. Kind of like a side effect of working with ASP .NET these past few months. I plan on playing around with more of it, hopefully I'll be successful tinkering with the Journal CSS here.

So 25 years... wooo!

I'm taking another stab at pencils. I figured if the only way to continue to improve is to get off the tablet, away from Photoshop, and start traditionally capturing subjects again.



I was off to Jerry Artarama today to get all the pencils I'd need. 2H, H, F, B through 6B, kneaded eraser, etc. I forgot to get newsprint paper, oh well, I'll pick it up later.

The hardest thing for me to do in pencils is foliage, people, and animals. I hope to figure out how to finally do them.

Oh well, at least I'm making pictures again.

Other than that, worked more on the TV show, spent time with the folks, trying to figure out how to get more furniture in my house...

Ahh... being single is ever so fun.