So I've decided to whore myself out.

I have opened a tshirt store and I decided it would be a good idea to put some of my drawings on tshirts and try to sell them.

Check it out!

Ugh, I'm ashamed of myself.

Check that, I'll be ashamed of myself if I actually make any money.

It's August!

And who knows what this month will bring? Maybe fame and fortune. Maybe Ted will finally get off his lazy ass and finish that children's book. Maybe Ian will drop Ted like a bad habit the instant something better comes along. All we can say is that we'll get some more crap posted.

Also, I'm moving to New York City in September. My time in Minnesota is at an end, and after the past 3 years, I'm ready for the big city. In the meantime, enjoy this lovely picture of Ian and I, and we'll start up this bloggy nonsense soon enough.

I own the computer that was built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs

My computer is made of granite and I launch my internet application by chiseling MS Dos language into it with a sharpened bone fragment and a rock.

Seriously.

Sean Wendt: He's the man. He's the MAAAAAAAAN.

Kind of.

This is my roommate.

He looks exactly like this.

Happy Birthday America!

Another heartbreak

I probably was fishing around some deep seated emotional scar tissue when I came up with this one.

Enjoy my pain!

Ooh, Sexy Boy

I tried some colored pencils this time. This guy looks kind of like my high school psychology professor who really hated my wacky antics.

Collaboration: Part II

This is another doodle that Ted, Corby and I (Ian) made together over a couple beers last weekend. I decided it would be fun to color it and make a 3-panel strip from our sketches. Ted did the sun, I provided the moon, and Corby is responsible for that slut, Mother Earth.

Preggers

This is Ian, posting on behalf of Ted. While he does NOT have access to the internet at his new job, Ted DOES have access to everything he never wanted to know about his coworker's womb. Hang in there, Ted.

Collaboration!

What do you get when three astonishingly brilliant forces combine to create a collaborative work of genius? Well, frankly, we don't know either. But at least we tried. Twice. P.S. Ted is the Scrabble king, and the M***y P*g got OWNED. ;)

A little something different

Being unemployed, I have a lot of free time that I spend on the internet. Thanks to fellow video game junkies like myself, I have stumbled across a game from my childhood that I forgot. A game that is so epic it broke the casing of the NES cartridge with sheer awesome power. A game with a story so heartrending and beautiful, I still get misty eyed thinking about it. A game that will forever be remembered as the greatest.

The game is BAD DUDES.

I know what you're thinking, and let me assure you, the game is just as great as it's title makes it sound.

Now while I have posted a video of the game being played courtesy of youtube, I do want to point out some of my favorite gems.

Number 1:

One of the first things I learned about writing a good story was grabbing the audience's attention. Some random stranger who is hanging out at the DMV getting his photo taken claims that the President (of the United States we can only assume) has been kidnapped. By ninjas. Tom Clancy must be spinning in his grave.

What's that?

Really?

Huh.

Honestly though, if a random stranger in a bomber jacket looking like he just got his eyes dilated at the optometrist came up to me and told me that some Japanese assassins kidnapped the President, I would probably scoff and say, "The President was kidnapped? BY NINJAS? Awesome. But in answer to your question, Random Stranger, yes. I am a bad enough dude to rescue the President."

Number 2:

You can play as either Blade or Striker.

Not only are these dudes bad, they're also American Gladiators. (Mental note, think tank a movie script about American Gladiators saving the President. From ninjas.)

Number 3:

Now I was never very good at video games when I was a kid. I never had the patience to constantly try and try and try and try until finally I got the satisfaction of my pixelated character in the TV winning his epic battle against evil. In fact, the only games I beat when I was younger were:

Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and

The Little Mermaid.

Anyway, courtesy of the internet once more, I can now see the final screen of Bad Dudes. Finally! After years I get to see how this game finally ends! Are Blade and Striker victorious in rescuing the President from Ninjas? Let's find out!

Uh.

Hmm.

Well, I guess I should be glad I never spent the time to try and beat this game. Thanks for rescuing me dudes, now let's go get a burger? Oh Mr. President, your sardonic wit and sharp sarcasm constantly keep me on the toes. Hey wait a minute, is that the British flag in the background? Did we just rescue the Prime Minister instead of...wait...of course! It was all an elaborate ruse by the British Government to rescue their head of state! I knew that burger line was forced! CURSE YOU ENGLAND! CURSE YOU TO HELL!


I would like to end this post by describing the scene of playing this game with my younger brother. I was 7, he was 5. We rented the game and spent the entire car ride speculating about how bad the bad dudes really were.

Me: "I bet you can get nunchucks!"
My brother: "I bet you can fly!"

We were ready to rock and roll with our karate bad dude action. We literally played the game for about 20 minutes, at which point my dad came into the room, saw that the President was kidnapped by ninjas, and said, "This game is stupid. Why on Earth would you waste your time with this?" At which point we returned the game to the video store. So when I said earlier that I didn't devote the time necessary to beat the game, what I really meant was my parents were very careful about what kind of entertainment I was allowed to enjoy.

They also didn't let me read comic books. I read the novelizations of comic books.

I wish I was kidding.

What have I been doing? I'm unemployed and using Ian's scanner. PS Thanks Ian.

Again, unemployed, using Ian's scanner.  Here's some drawrings!

I thought it would be fun one day to sit in a park in NE Minneapolis and draw the scene in front of me, eventually I realized that the architecture left much to be desired.  So I deviated from the straight drawing and did something else.

Here's me ANIME STYLE!  

This describes what happened at a Chipotle in NE Minneapolis.  I saw a guy wearing a tshirt with three people:  Karl Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao Zedong.  Again, at a Chipotle.  I know.  WTF?  I bet that if I asked him he would have rolled his eyes at me because he is a stupid hipster who's angry about his parents paying his rent.  Also I'm sure he works part time at a record store selling old vinyls to stupid poop farts who are dumb as a fart.

Some stuff is in the works. I promise.

We have some stuff in the works. I promise. I currently don't have access to a scanner (bummer) and those wacky Valento kids have me working on some other secret projects.

I had this vision of me being REALLY productive while unemployed. You can blame Niko Bellic and his ridiculously entertaining adventures on the mean streets of Liberty City.

More is coming soon!

Fun with Craigslist (Part 2)

So I was going through some old emails today when I stumbled across this gem from 2006. I was working a late shift at my old glamorous bankruptcy law firm job and one of my coworkers left their iPod at work. Being the good samaritan I am, I promptly posted an ad in the barter section of Chicago's Craigslist. What transpired kept me entertained for some time. The people who cruise the barter section are really top notch.

Enjoy.

So my coworker left his ipod at work today, his loss is YOUR GAIN!

What I am looking for is some cool shit. Any cool shit will do. Have a vintage Hall & Oates t shirt? (Did you know that they are TWO people?) Sure! How about a kitten? The more distempered the better! Maybe some old gym shorts! Want to consolidate your music collection? Sure! Just give us all the old CDs, cassettes, 8 tracks, and tape recorded bootlegs from your singing phase as a child you have lying around and let's make a deal!

Many other uses as well! Get your very own missed connection by pretending to listen to bad music on the EL! Those ladies will be all over your trendy patootie! Or men too! Even both! Replace the missing tile in your bathroom! Add a trendy and musical tile to the boring cream color in your shabby studio. Become the life of the party with this bartered ipod! You can even make stuff up about how you got it! Don't say it was bartered! Say it was won in a knife fight! The fruits of knife fights are great conversation and one night stand starters! Slovenly? Add a touch of the ipod to brighten any appearance, ranging from yuppietastic to just brushed my teeth with a dookie hungover! Yes the flexibility of the iPod will surely be marked in the annals of history for some time!

Many years in the future when our race has been enslaved by the Wonkatanians in their salt mines/candy factories one of our descendants will find this ipod and marvel at it's petite glory before they are whipped and thrown into the furnace! Man what a BARTER!

Hurry! Offer ends when my coworker comes to work tomorrow and asks me where his iPod is.*
You have until I leave work or my conscience catches up with me.


*The ipod even covers bad grammar on CL posts.**

**Not really.


this is in or around Loop
no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

In response to this ad, here are some of the responses received...

>>You are twisted. However, I feel compelled to make you an offer in hope that your conscience has not gotten the better of you. I will give you two replica aunt Jemima box things for the ipod. Right now, I keep onions in them. It seems to me you could use them for something, possibly to keep dirty Polaroids of yourself. You can also fill them with your favorite snack and then use them as discussion starters at parties. Whatever. I would send you pics, but CL says the files are too big. I think it's because God hates me. Anyhoo, they are super cool. See, here's the thing. My daughter is an aspiring straight edge, emo kid. Her look will not be complete until she can listen the whining, shrill screams that she so enjoys on an ipod. I'm sure she will tell people she got it as a reward from PETA for saving a dying pigeon from certain death. If you decide to do the right thing, meaning give me this ipod, I may buy her a tshirt that says "my mom pimped out Aunt Jemima for my ipod".To sweeten this deal, I also offer a used Norah Jones CD and an unopened Good Charlotte DVD. Please contact me as soon as possible. I will be on through out the evening checking out cock picks on casual encounters.

(This lady sounds like a real catch. Too bad she has a goth rock daughter, it's more romantic comedy than I would like in a relationship.)

> ill give you unopened sopranos season 5 and the> shield season 3>

> BVLAQUA,
Thank you for your interest and the generous offer of The Shield Season 3, and Sopranos Season 5. Unopened no less! While the iPod has been claimed (by a very generous offer from my coworker for my safety and the chance to keep my job) let me give you some advice. When offering a trade for an ipod with thousands of songs on it, it might be more beneficial to throw in some porn. Really hot porn. With lots of freaky deaky.

Cheers,

Edmund.

(I have yet to receive an offer that includes porn.)

>> >> Hey there,
>> >>>> >> How about a bunch of burned Cds or Dvds?
>> >>>> >> Let me know.. :)
>> >>>> >> Thanks!
>> >>

(My response)
Kate,>> >>> >
Thank you for your interest in the iPod. While my coworker has since tracked me down to retrieve his iPod, I was wondering if you are currently recruiting crew for your vessel. Avast I be a hearty lad that will swab yon poop deck with a lusty fervor. Ye sound like a fair ruler with an iron will and a vast collection of frilly shirts.

Yar!

Bluebeard.

(I didn't expect to get anything back from that. I was wrong)

Hey there,
Too bad the iPod is gone.. :(
Are you looking for f/t work, or just side jobs? I can't provide any work for you (just got a job myself), but I can offer you some possibilities in the suburbs if you're looking for f/t. :)

Kate


Actually I already have a job as well. I work as a midshipman on the good ship lollypop. My typical day entails swabbing, grub slinging and data entry. Thanks for your offer, and have a great day.

Peace,

Sandro

lol.. You're funny.

Okay, you take care too, and let me know if you find any more iPods.. ;)

(This lady sounds like a real catch. If you like that whole blank stare type thing. Now comes the best one. If you have an iPod you can get some really primo shit off of this guy.)

EMAIL 1

Hmmm, what do i have? I've got records. How do you feel about classic rock? How do you feel about a 10-record grab bag? We're talking Beatles, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, etc. What else.....umm....a super nintendo? Those are pretty awesome. You want my advice... I think you should go with the records. I'll make sure they're good ones. Oh, and I'm conveniently located in the loop and i'd be happy to pick it up.

(response)
J,
Thank you for your interest. As you can probably ascertain from the posting, my coworker has already contacted me and will be asking for his iPod back. I apologize for the "tease", but let me assure you, of all the replies I recieved, your shit is by far the coolest (one person even offered "burned CDs and DVDs") Right. Anyways, stay loose, be cool, and never underestimate the power of cool shit like a laser tag set and a grab bag of records. What you should do, is post your cool shit online and see what people will offer. Maybe you can wrangle up your own set of burned DVDs and CDs! Thanks again,

Franklin


EMAIL 2
Other things I have:
A really cool Back to the Future pennant from Universal Studios from the early 90's
A video cassette of GI JOE The Movie
A jack-o-lantern dodgeball ball
Two packages of Peeps Cocoa Bats from three halloweens ago
Three 8 oz cans of Candy Corn flavored soda
A first generation Game Boy Advance with Bomberman
An autographed Stryper bible!!!
C'mon how can you say no to that!!?!???!!!!??!!?!?

EMAIL 3
Star Wars Monopoly?
A case of Budweiser?
A crappy vase from Ikea?
Sega CD system with absolutely no games?
A VHS cassette of the 80's classic "RAD" about bmx biking?
A bmx bike?
A wall clock of some kind of japanese cartoon?
A "Biobug" sans remote control?
A pretty nice edition of Gray's Anatomy?
64 slightly used Crayola crayons?
I think that's everything I own.

(response)
Also,
I have seen Rad, and that movie's reputation precedes itself. While tempting to alienate my coworker and entire office staff after he tells them what transpired, I think that the adventures of the BMX bikers is a fair trade for an ipod that is someone else's. Thanks again,

Ian

EMAIL 4
LASER TAG!!!I've got two sets of the newest edition which consists of the gun and these glasses with a microphone and sensor or something.

That is all.


RESPONSE FROM JUSTIN!!!!
I expected as much, but a part of me was hoping that you were actually a real asshole with a weakness for other people's pop culture junk. Cheers.

J, sometimes I wish the same thing. I bet I would get a lot more action that way. And while I do have a weakness for pop culture junk, I also have aweakness for having things of value. Ah well,
Peace.

Franklin

I am Iron Man!

This picture basically illustrates the pandemonium that occured at a promotional screening of Iron Man on Wednesday. But wait! Didn't the movie come out on Thursday at midnight Ted? It sure did faithful readers, but yours truly has connections! Ok, fine I just mooch off friends with real jobs. Shut up.

I think this pic sums up the general attitude of me, Ian and our friend Bret. We were giggling like middle school girls at a Hannah Montana concert. After the movie, I even emailed my mom and told her she would love it. She really likes comic movies for some reason.

Go see Iron Man.

The Deal of the Century

So an otherwise slow day at work was livened up by a gentleman who called to sell me his building. At first I tried to pass him off, but his speech was slurred to a comic degree. I think the first rule of salesman school is "Don't get completely loaded and then cold call people to sell your building that's located right off the highway."

According to our friend, this building is going for 2.5 million dollars, and is "explosion proof", although I bet you could get it for the low low price of a case of Stroh's and a fifth of Phillips vodka.

Email if you are interested.

Tuesday Drawing Archive

Ian played Henry V in Henry V. With a huge package.

This is one of my favorites of Ian's. Krull is hilarious and awesome. Also this is probably Ken Marshall's day to day life.

Finally, we have mine. Ian gave me a challenge to draw a picture of a deleted scene from the kickass movie Cloverfield starring our mutual friend Jesse St. Louis, a foul-mouthed New Yorker who somehow wound up at our small Norwegian Lutheran college on the hill known as St. Olaf. I'm pretty sure my drawing depicts EXACTLY what would happen should Jesse have been in that movie, or even in NYC if a giant monster attacked.

Enjoy!

Ted in Asia #1

This will probably be the first in a series of stories from my Term in Asia trip in college. For five months, I went to Japan, China, Thailand & Vietnam. It was a life changing experience. However, most of the "life changing" aspects were also "emotionally scarring". This first pic is basically my entire experience in China. I weighed at least 300 pounds at the time and was very self-conscious about my weight thanks to the 12+ years of verbal abuse given to me in school. Wasn't high school awesome? Anyways, once I got to college people weren't OPENLY hostile anymore (instead they just made lots of assumptions about my intelligence based on my weight). Then I went to China.

In China, people are different. Now that probably sounds obvious but let me elaborate with an example. I was walking around China with some friends of mine and a woman came up to me and said something in Chinese. She asked me how old I was. "21" I replied. The woman laughed, then moved her hands up to her face as if to say "I caught a fish THIS big!" only she was actually saying "You are VERY fat! Good job!"

Needless to say I didn't enjoy China.

So this picture is something I doctored up fairly quickly last night. Tori Amos has a song called "China" which is why she makes a cameo in this blog entry. Enjoy it! There will be more traumatic stories from my childhood and Asia trip to come!

Ted White: The Next Maytag Man?

So it was an overcast spring day in Chicago, Illinois. My friend Dave (he and his siblings have their own blog linked on the right) and I made plans to go to the open casting to become the next Maytag Man. We both are pretty cold hearted sarcastic bastards so we didn't expect much, although the prospect of being in commercials and getting paid 350,000 a year really appealed to us. We were ready to sell our standards for a hefty chunk of change.

The day of the audition, my roommate at the time asked if he could come along. We said sure.
The auditions were at Navy Pier, where there's no free parking and public transportation access is too much of a hassle. I decided to drive and we would all split the parking. When we arrived we filled out a form and they called us into a room in groups of five. Dave's side of the story is detailed on his blog, along with another one of my pictures.

THIS picture is from my room. Now when they called us in, they went down the line and asked us WHY we wanted to be the next Maytag Man. I would be the last person they asked in my group so I got to hear everyone's answer before they got to me.

This is what they said:

Person 1 (A middle aged portly balding man): I am really good at repairing things, I have about 10 years of experience in the field, and I can act sad really well! (People thought this was funnier than Jerry Lewis)

Person 2 (A non descript person, also middle aged): I have about 15 years of repair experience.

By this point I started to wonder WHY these people felt it necessary to have repair experience if the Maytag man doesn't actually repair anything. That's the whole point.

Person 3 (This older small man) launched into this speech about how he's been a repairman for 25 years and how much he enjoys it because when he fixes something and it works...it's like magic. And then he did this little flair like he was actually a magician. Also he was actually WEARING a repairman outfit. He brought his tools along too, just in case he there was a leaky pipe or clogged toilet. After his speech, one of the women asking the questions said, "You win." I didn't know if she was referencing the Maytag contest or if she was just commenting on how nice it is to repair something and have it work. I figured the latter, but by this point I was starting to roll my eyes at the self importance of the entire situation.

Person 4 also had 20 years of repair experience. What a surprise! I was beginning to wonder if I should just lie and say that I had 45 years of repair experience since my dad was a repair man for 45 years. (Not true, my dad is a financial planner.)

So finally, they get to me. And they ask the question: Why do you want to be the next Maytag Man?

And I don't know what got into me, but I asked: "You mean like, a repair man for Maytag...or the guy in the commercials?"

Pause.

Judge: Um. The man in the commercials.

Me: Oh, so I wouldn't ACTUALLY have to repair ANY Maytag Product? Because wasn't the whole point that the Maytag product never breaks and therefore the repair man is really bored?

Judge:....No, you wouldn't have to repair anything.

Me: Ok. We're square then.

And that was basically it. They asked me some half assed question about my interests and I said I enjoy knitting and yoga.

So we went out to wait in the lobby for the results of who passed the first round of auditioning. After about 20 minutes I found out that all the repairmen in my room passed the first round, and I did not.

So much for honesty.

A slice of a typical day at my current temp gig

So this is a typical day at my office. Notice how I'm the only one wearing a tie. I thought I would try to bring some class to this little office with only two other people.

It's not appreciated.

I would launch into some larger description of this picture but I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Thank God it's temporary.

Also I just found out that it's Administrative Professionals Day. Oddly enough I didn't get anything. Well, I guess I did get a hefty amount of attitude. So that's something.

Lessons Learned Last Weekend

1. Don't get loaded when you have yoga class at 2PM the next day.

2. My office's scanner can't scan the whole sheet of a page from my sketchbook.

3. The State of Illinois is a dirty thief and liar that took my 12 dollars I sent them to give me a driving record. JERKS!

But more about #1. I showed up to yoga after a night of drinkin on Friday, and I could barely do child's pose. For those of you unfamiliar with yoga, it's basically an easier way to sit down. I could barely do it. My head was swimming and I was sweating out cheap tequila for two hours. A real nightmare.

And also my office's scanner can't scan all of my drawing! But it's okay, most of it is there. The "L" in "Lesson" is a little cut off, but that's ok. What do you want from me? You're getting free entertainment here! LEAVE ME ALONE!