Monthly Archives: November 2007

New from Don Rosa in Uncle Scrooge #375!

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If you were thumbing through the latest issue of Diamond Comics’ PREVIEWS catalog, you may have seen this:

Uncle Scrooge #375 front cover (2008, Gemstone Publishing) © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Uncle Scrooge #375

by Carl Barks, Cesar Ferioli & Terry Laban

Scrooge blasts off for Carl Barks’ “Twenty-Four Carat Moon.” Next, he seeks “The Laurels of Julius Pecunius,” an ancient crown with the power to hypnotize its wearer. Then the Beagle Boys swindle Scrooge with Cesar Ferioli’s “Oracle Turtle” — and Terry Laban (Edge City) pits Scrooge and Magica against each other in “Curses!”

What you won’t find in this listing is that this book is #4 of 12 in our “Scrooge’s 60th Anniversary” series, which features pinups by Don Rosa on each back cover. Here’s a peek at what you’ll find when you flip over this bad boy:

Uncle Scrooge #375 back cover

Now like I said, it’s #4. That means if you want the entire set, you’ll want to grab these other issues, too:

  • Uncle Scrooge #372
    In honor of Uncle Scrooge’s 60th anniversary, celebrate in high style with several extra-classic McDuck adventures! Carl Barks’ “Christmas on Bear Mountain” marks Scrooge’s 1947 debut…
  • Uncle Scrooge #373
    Why did the Scottish tycoon join the French Foreign Legion? Find out what “Special Agent Scrooge” hopes to gain in a feature-length adventure by fan favorites Romano Scarpa and Giorgio Cavazzano…
  • Uncle Scrooge #374
    When Scrooge finds “A Gal for Gladstone” on Valentine’s Day, he doesn’t realize he’s fixed his impossibly lucky nephew up with evil sorceress Magica De Spell…

If you want to see all the pinups we’ll be featuring throughout the year, just head on over to the INDUCKS summary. You can use it like those baseball card checklists we used to get in every other pack. Wasn’t that always a bummer, when you’d get ripped off by having a whole card wasted on a card checklist? It was almost worse than getting that 7th “Ricky Baggs” card when you were only 3 shy of a complete set. Nowadays we just put that stuff on the web! :)

Giuliani should just quit while he’s not so far behind

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I updated the previous post, but forgot to write a new one. Whoops!

We don’t have a TV, so I read over the transcript for last night’s CNN/YouTube Republican debate. Romney and McCain are becoming more interesting. I’m disappointed that Paul is appearing myopic (really, can all of our problems be solved simply by closing military bases and the IRS?) and marginalized (CNN decided to spend a question on conspiracy theories? C’mon!). Huckabee… eh. But Giuliani just seemed defensive and beaten.

In other news, a press release was just issued this morning announcing that Egmont (among other things, they’re the source for much of the comics we print at Gemstone) has teamed up with Random House and will be opening a U.S. division. Interesting…

I was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, and took Monday off

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Hey everyone, I’m back!

Did you know the Wall Street Journal displays trackbacks at the bottom of its articles? I didn’t realize this until I started getting a bunch of comments on Friday from people I didn’t know. Friday may have actually been my highest-trafficked day since starting this blog.

Of course, I had to be moving at the time. ;)

We’re in Marietta now. Boxes are all over the place, but everyone seems to love the new digs. (I was really worried there would be something that Nicole hated about the place—she never saw it before Saturday!)

I want to take a moment and publicly thank our friends and family who helped us move: on Saturday, we had Nathan Bartlebaugh, Steve Cole and Brian Powell helping us take our junk down from our 3rd-floor apartment into the moving truck (and special thanks for getting the treadmill! That think must’ve weighed half a ton…). Brian and his wife Jo came up to the new place that evening, and brought us dinner (perhaps the best lasagna I’ve ever had)! On Sunday, my mom and dad, Jordan, Naomi and Sarah came up to help us unload, and our new neighbor, Jason, pitched in too. I think this may be the first time I’ve been invited to a neighbor’s home for dinner before we’d moved into our new place!

Unpacking is going well, but I’m still looking for some nuts and bolts so I can reassemble the end-tables in the living room…

WSJ on Tithing

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The Wall Street Journal has just published a decent article on the fight against the tithing heresy, and it’s scary how similar my own story is to that of one of the believers in the article:

When he objected to his church’s instructions to tithe, Kirk Cesaretti took it up with the church leaders. In response, he received a letter from the pastor and elders of Hydesville Community Church in Hydesville, Calif. “At this time, we believe your concerns do not warrant any change in our church policy or positions,” the letter read.

The letter closed with a verse from Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls; as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”

Mr. Cesaretti, an engineer in Fortuna, Calif., says he took the letter to mean he was no longer welcome at the church. Hydesville’s senior pastor, Michael Delamarian III, says he believes “the more you give the more you’re going to be blessed.” He says he did not bar Mr. Cesaretti from the church.

There’s a lot of passive-aggressive manipulation happening on the part of these pastors toward the flocks under their care. The article also mentions the practice of pastors making applicants sign a document essentially vowing to tithe. Are there so few people who understand that inclusion in the visible expression of the Body of Christ is not something to be held for ransom? My heart breaks for the people who have turned (or rather, been turned) away from Christ on account of grinning, greedy wolves like this at the pulpit.

So yeah, if you were wondering… the wound‘s still a bit fresh.

Can I be paid in gold bullion, please?

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If I had a gold-based salary (rather than U.S. Dollar-based), I’d be doing quite well now.

I just ran the numbers, and sheesh! When I started working full-time as a web designer, my beginning salary was $25k/yr. At the time, gold was trading at $280US/oz., so if I’d been paid in gold, I would have been working for 89.29oz/yr.

Fast-forward to November 2007: the U.S. Dollar has become so devalued (primarily due to the never-ending Federal Reserve printing presses—we’ve got to fund the troops somehow, and that somehow is by printing more FR notes) that if we take that hypothetical “gold-standard salary” and convert it into today’s U.S. Dollar, you end up with $71,500/yr.

Let me say that again: $25,000 in May 2000 equals $71,500 in November 2007.

Somehow those raises don’t seem so much like raises anymore.

FYI: Storage Bin Recall

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I’ve seen bins like this in friends’ homes, so I want to spread the word:

CPSC has received one report of a death involving an 8-month-old boy who was asphyxiated after he pulled on the storage rack and it fell over on him. The top rail landed on the infant’s neck. No other incidents have been reported.

The storage rack is wooden with three levels and nine removable canvas totes. There are wooden handles on each side of the rack. The boy’s storage rack has natural color wood with red, yellow, green, and navy canvas totes. The girl’s storage rack has white colored wood with pink, yellow, lime, and purple canvas totes.

If you’ve got one of these, you should immediately stop children from using it and contact Jetmax International at (800) 689-2168 to receive a free repair kit that adds stability to the base.

Best Day of My Life

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Until we move to PA, I’m working an earlier schedule at Gemstone so that I can get home at a decent hour (meaning before Joshua goes to sleep for the night). Because of that, I’ve been getting up at 6:30am; not incredibly early, but I had been used to getting into work at 9:30.

Alarm clock goes off at 6:30 this morning. I hit the button to turn it off… and go back to sleep. Thankfully I woke up only fifteen minutes later, but it still threw my morning routine out of whack. I try to get ready and out the door in a decent amount of time, but it never really works. I’m tying my necktie when I look up at the clock and realize I’m already a half-hour late.

I grab my lunch, give Nicole and Joshua kisses (Katie got some earlier; we’re trying to train her to stay in bed ’till 8am so Mama doesn’t have to hit the ground running), and I’m out the door. Nicole reminds me (granted, she had told me the night before and as the daily commuter it was my fault anyway) that the car was on empty. And oh yeah, it’s raining and generally miserable outside. I try to suck it up and just head off to work—er, I mean the gas station.

Pull up to the cheapest station in the area, wondering why $3.02/gal sounds like a bargain to me. Get out to pump, and I realize the pump’s overhang isn’t going to keep the rain off of me; it’s really just going to pool the rain into bigger drops. Unscrew the gas cap, hit the “CREDIT OUTSIDE” button, reach for my wallet…

…where’s my wallet?

…

I DON’T @%$%$ BELIEVE IT. I LEFT THE @&!!& WALLET AT THE HOUSE?!

…

Screw the gas cap back on. Sheepishly climb back into the car. Wonder who in this busy station (cheapest in the area, remember?) is watching my strange behavior. Meanwhile, those minutes just keep ticking by. I consider leaving the car running while I buzz the entrance and have Nicole meet me with my wallet, but it’s so late now that I might as well forget about getting into the office early anyway.

I walk in the door and I’m greeted by Katie. I knew she’d be up, though; it’s already a quarter past eight. Nicole asks what’s wrong, I tell her about the wallet, and then… she and Katie sit me down on the couch for hugs and snuggles.

I tell ya, I walked out that door with a little spring in my step and Dido’s Thank You playing in my head.

“And even if my house falls down now, I wouldn’t have a clue…”

Lousy weather, high gas prices, being late for work, forgetting your wallet… how tough can those things be if a couple of hugs can best ‘em all, hands down?