I find the month of June 2010 guilty of the following:

• One count of my partner who does all the work I don’t want to do being on vacation for a month, leaving me with twice the work to do and the only person at work I can have a real conversation with gone.
• One count of a staff member just not showing up any more leaving us shorthanded by one for the duration of the month.
• One count of a staff member injuring herself with a box cutter leaving us shorthanded by another one for the duration of the month.
• Two counts of staff members losing family members causing us to be further shorthanded, in one case for a week and in the other for the duration of the month.
• Four counts of machinery literally breaking.
• Three counts of my supposed second in command leaving early without letting me know and leaving me with extra work that I had to rush through so I could be done in time to catch my ride.
• Two counts of my supposed second in command calling in to say he won’t be coming to work for reasons deemed suspicious.
• One count of me not getting done in time to catch my ride.
• One count of the paper being delayed hours to wait for the results of a hockey game. (Fact: Anyone who cared about that game and for some reason hadn’t watched it on television or caught the results on the news or on the Internet or from friends should really just not bother)
• Untold counts of me spending hours trying to get to sleep but unable because of heat or noise from outside.
• Eight counts of me finally being asleep and then being awakened by some external stimuli (In one case it was a cannon salute for the Queen. Am I the only one who thinks maybe she’s been around the world enough that a cannon salute isn’t going to impress her much?)
• One count of being called into work when I had already been awake for twenty-one hours.
• Three counts of me crashing an sleeping for ten or more hours at a time, eating up an entire day of time spent not working.
• Two counts of having to postpone Father’s Day dinner because of work.
• Two counts of having to cancel blood donation appointments because of work.
• Three counts of having to turn down Hanging Out With Friends time because of work.
• One count of ruining a shirt on a jagged metal bit at work.
• Two counts of ruining pants beyond the point of wearability (and for me that point means they are quite damaged.
• One count of me injuring my finger in such a way that blood came out from under the fingernail.
• One count of a long scratch on the back of my neck from the corner of a machine I was reaching under.
• One count of not having access to the Internet on my only day off during one week.
• One count of the twenty-four hour gas station I used to stop for juice when I had to walk from work apparently not being open twenty-four hours any more.
• One count of locking myself out of my apartment.
• One count of the truck I was in nearly being hit by a drunk driver (or if not drunk, just a very bad driver).
• At least three counts of papercuts (those are just the ones that occurred after I decided to keep a list of annoyances).
• One count of being a month with so many annoyances I decided to keep a list.

Now, I fully admit that the vast majority of these are quite minor and several were obviously much worse for other people than me, but the fact it was all condensed into one four-week span really made June 2010 a month that I will not miss in the least. It joins the year 2006 in Times PDR Mostly Didn’t Enjoy. But hey, it is all over now.

So, I lost my cable channels. I mean, I’ve not been paying for cable for years, but for some reason instead of getting the basic channels one is supposed to get, I was getting an eclectic mix of networks with no rhyme or reason.

I was getting TVTropolis, which was good for getting sitcom reruns, something everybody should enjoy at least now and then. I was getting A&E, and though it was no longer the A&E I remembered from my youth with documentaries and stuff, I watched the occasional crime show or really censored episodes of the Sopranos on occasion. I had Spike, which is a monstrously stupid channel from what I could see, but they had Star Wars on, pretty much nonstop. PBS had some science programs worth watching, but mostly I just watched kids shows like Effing Super Why. Also, there was an informercial channel which could amuse if you were in the right mood and maybe one or two sports channels that I pretty much never watched.

Basically, I was getting enough channels to flip around a little bit before I realized how much television sucked and would move on to something else. But now I only get the three basic Canadian channels or whatever. Now realizing that there is nothing on happens faster than ever before.

I may not watch all that much television, but unlike some I don’t lambast the entire medium. There are things I appreciate about it. In a way even watching it alone seems more like a social activity than watching DVDs or downloading episodes of things. It seems less canned on television somehow. I suppose that is, in part, because of the unfortunate presence of commercials which, though annoying, are at least a sign of companies trying to keep you up to date on their activities. Also, much more positive than commercials, is the fact that you can get breaking news interruptions. If I’m watching a rented movie and the Queen sets herself on fire and then declares war on the Vatican and then has a swordfight with the Pope, I’m gonna miss the whole thing, but if I’m watching most television networks you’d think they’d interrupt programming to say “Holy Shit, check this out!”

When I watch programs online, such as the Daily Show and Colbert, I guess I get the ads (the annoying one of the connections to the outside world) but even then I lack the other thing I like about the medium of television. Sometimes I am definitely in the mood to say “Okay, TV, let’s see what you’ve got for me.” Sometimes I might find something worth watching. An episode of some show I didn’t know existed, or an old one I had forgotten or some movie from the eighties, who knows? As far as I am aware there is no way for me to just “flip around” on the Internet.

I mean, YouTube comes close to that level of flip-aroundedness, but… It has also somehow succeeded in having more garbage than television. Go figure.

Granted, he was on the Internet before, but now he is also available as a torrent on Demonoid. Since that story is about the only complete thing I’ve finished and put online, I thought it would be good to get it out somewhere where someone might actually accidentally read it.

Paradoxically, I hope it doesn’t accidentally lead people to know I exist because then I might feel bad when I don’t make more things…

Updated: I guess it is a full on Adventure Dennis day over here. Inspired by the upload I whipped up a quick drawing of Adventure Dennis himself in a different style which can be seen to the left there.

Furthermore, Marq has given a high-tech upgrade to the Adventure Dennis comic page and it is now like seventy-seven times more awesome than it was when it was just a whole bunch of pictures one after the other. It actually seems way too spiffy to be on this website, but I’ll take it!

And I’ve uploaded two Adventure Dennis desktop wallpapers. One is from back in the Contains2 days and is 1024×768 and another is newer and 1366×768.

So far being not at work is already feelin’ fine. I’ve gotten many errands done quicker than I usually do. And it’s only Saturday morning! Sweet. Let’s see if I can’t do something worthwhile with the time yet to come.

Of course, I’ve also got to waste some time. With that in mind we got Joust for the NES. I can’t say I’m any better at games than I ever was, but at least I’m playing a classic.

The only really pitfall of my time off is that my computer has betrayed me. Well, betrayed me is kind of a strong word. It implies my computer used to be on my side. My computers have always been about rolling their own way. I can hitch a ride and get some benefits from it, but they don’t really care if I’m doing well or not. This particular laptop had been doing strange things such as constantly turning the volume to maximum, making the letter “b” appear for no reason when I hit enter, insert, delete, right shift or the arrow keys and occasionally turns off its own ability to pick up wireless. Troublesome, but I was used to it.

But now it has all changed! Now it is constantly turning the volume to minimum, making the letter “c” appear for no reason when I hit enter, insert, delete, right shift or the arrow keys and occasionally turns off its own ability to pick up wireless. The primary problem with this is that, when my volume is maxed out, I can still listen to it. When it is minimal I can not. I have had music to play me to sleep since listening to the radio as a child and though I can sleep without it, I am convinced that I don’t sleep as well. I wake up feeling bad when I don’t have music as I fall asleep. I don’t know why, but it seems to be backed up. Also, without volume, watching the Daily Show and Colbert becomes pretty hard.

As for the change from letter “b” to letter “c”, that just freaks me out because I can almost imagine reasons why those buttons might accidentally write one letter, but for it to suddenly switch letters it just hurts my brain.

Computers, man. They’re complicated.

Apparently these problems are not uncommon with my particular make of laptop. I’m not about to open my laptop up and pull a plug any time soon as one dude suggests, but man I would like to. I just fear I would kill the computer in the process.

Anyway, later.

A year or two ago I bought a box of tissues solely because it had superheroes on the box. At the time I didn’t need them, I just liked that it had superheroes so I bought it. Hopefully revealing that weakness won’t lead to manufacturers of products like corkscrews and ladles adding heroes in the hopes of getting my sales. But anyway, I mostly forgot about them until this holiday season when I got something of a cold. Now needing the tissues and keeping the box by my side for several days I got to thinking about them once more, and now I must bring that thinking to the Internet.

There they are. They are out on patrol perhaps, notice a big monster and proceed to stop its rampage. That’s superheroes for you. I’ve no doubt that these guys are inspired by the Invincibles. They’re definitely a family.

First thought, I would say they are Environmentally friendly heroes. The green costumes. The slimy monster who eats trees and windmills (!!). The fact the tissue paper they sell was made of recycled materials. It all adds up. Perhaps they’re not like the Planeteers who only fight enviro-crime, but they certainly lean that way.

Individually:

• The little girl can fly and create some manner of, what appears to soap, which she throws at the monster. Perhaps she can create other things to throw and was just choosing something appropriate to the situation? The fact she keeps the pollution monster as a pet shows that she’s an idealist. Even that evil beast, she feels, could be redeemed with a little love.
• The boy, probably a young teenager has elastic powers. The way he raises an eyebrow before grappling the creature’s leg tells me that he is something of a jokester. But he is no loner. You can tell he likes being part of this family. Probably because they are superheroes and that’s awesome.
• Mom can fly and shoot some sort of energy from her hands. Either it’s a cleansing beam in accordance with the posited environmental theme, and this is why the pollution monsters shrinks, or it is just a straight-up shrink beam. Either way, that’s our finishing move for this skirmish.
• Now, the father is interesting. I have no doubt that his frame holds superhuman strength and probably nigh invulnerability. But what impresses me most is that he stays out of the fight. A coward? No, I suspect he knows that punching that thing’s face off is just going to make a mess and his family is more than capable without him. These guys have clearly done this before.

So that’s them. We don’t know their names or anything else about them. I have to wonder, though, did the person hired by No Name brand to create these heroes and decorate a box of tissues with them put more thought into them than went into the story. Is this a case of fictional characters who have been thought out more than their medium gives them a chance to show? Could their creator have given them names and origins or were they but a moment’s work and then forgotten. Were they a labor of love or a mercenary way to spend a day drawing?
Either way, this post is a monument to these forgotten heroes. We salute you! You’re still better than Aquaman.

I AM PROBABLY THE FIRST PERSON TO TALK ABOUT THESE GUYS ON THE INTERNET. I WIN.

My cold is totally better now.