Ah ha! Now the Rubberband's on the Other Claw!

Guten Tag faithful and faithless readers of the Mustard. My apologies for the lack of update until now. Tis been a busy week. As many of you know, and by many I mean the 3 of you or so who might actually read this blog, I have been hard at work finishing up the first episode of the strip. There will probably a week or two of down time before I start up the next one. Quite frankly, as most of you have been putting in your profiles, I've been spending too much time on it. But that's what happens when my frustratingly demented brain gets creative and won't let me rest til I put down all the strange ideas that enter it. So yes, I think I'm taking a little vacation from it to catch up on other things such as cleaning my apartment, doing laundry and catching up with dear friends who never call me back.

Speaking of which, if any of you caught the latest episode of Gilmore Girls this Tuesday and had really good eyes and knew what you were looking for, you may have seen Mr. Brock Domin was wake-goer #4. He enters the apartment for the wake, flashes a big goofy Domin smile and then does a reach around on Rory in order to get a cup. He can then be seen of to the side conversing with a group of girls about which I can only imagine except to say I'm sure it involved a phone number and the words "and a half".

Also a shout out to the big little man Sean "Booter" Griffin for proving that it's not how tall you are but who's old enough to buy alcohol first that matters. He turned 24 yesterday and yes ladies, he is single and loves to be the little spoon.

Thanks go out again to Erin for being the ONLY person to post a comment on the blog. Come on, Crowley, I know you've read this at least once.

The unbelievable has happened in that since my last post I have not seen one new movie. I know what you're thinking, he must've been involved in some horrible car accident that broke both legs and prevented him from leaving the house. That almost happened but luckily the blue toyota managed to get out of my way. No, there just wasn't really any great movies out last week that grabbed the attention. Add to that the fact that I spent all Saturday at the bottom of a pitcher as Notre Dame got their rear-ends handed to them on a silver platter with french fried potatoes by Purdue and I just wasn't in the mood to do much else other than relax. I may not even go this weekend either! Who knows. After Home Depot with the wallpaper, and flooring, stuff like that, maybe Bed Bath & Beyond... I just don't know if there'll be time. There's another Notre Dame game (come on, we have to beat Stanford) and those tend to take a lot out of me... and my wallet.

Some quick book review for any of you who are currently looking for something good to read in this lovely autumnal weather:

The Rule of Four - Ok, this book has some serious potential. Started off intriguing, with the main character/narrator Tom being drawn back into the senior thesis of his roommate, Paul, who is working unravel the hidden secrets of ancient text, much as Tom's father did before he died. The writing style really draws you into the college setting, giving you a great picture of the relationship between Tom and his roommates and does an excellent job of spelling out their different personalities. The problem comes when you get two thirds of the way through the book and you realize, nothing has actually happened. Oh sure, there's a murder and naturally Paul becomes the prime suspect of the police and mystery and amateur detective work ensues but you keep expecting with the historical ramifications of this text they're trying to decipher that there's going to be this huge epic scope that's going to unfold and these great mysteries are going to be unlocked and then it pretty much just ends. And for being a literature major Tom certainly missed out. He should have a been a philosophy major with all the deep insights into life that he dishes during the course of the book. I mean for someone who is supposed to be a Senior in college madly rushing about to finish his thesis and solve a murder and unlock the mysteries of Hypern0tomachia (yeah, that's the name of the book and it must've been a mighty big pain to have to type that one out the two hundred times or so it appears) he certainly spends a lot of time deliberating on the meaning of life and love. But anyways, my general consensus of the book is that it's a whole lot of potential that ends up leaving you thinking, that's it? Also negative points for the title of the book. I'm sure it's supposed to be probably be referring to both the secret of deciphering the mystery of the book and also to the situation of the four roommates. I don't care, should've been something else more relevant to the story.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - With as different a narrator as you could think of compared to the above mentioned Tom, the main character/narrator here is an autistic fifteen year old name Christopher who while on a walk one night comes across his neighbors dog, killed with a garden fork. He then takes it upon himself to follow in the veins of one of his favorite literary characters, Sherlock Holmes, and solve the murder. This book is an excellent contrast to The Rule of Four because not only is the scope of the two books as far apart as you can get but also in the form of narrator as, while in that book Tom got to bore us with his long-winded deeply philosophical collegiate views of life, Christopher is a high school mathematical genius who barely possesses any social skills because he views life through the simple view of mathematical proofs. Illogical fantasies and impossible to prove philosophies have no place in his life. And it is through his black and white view of things that we see not only the difficulties faced by autistic but also the ridiculous situations and problems that illogical emotions can cause. I won't spoil any thing in this review but suffice to say that by the end we get to the point that the harsh judgments about the adults, easily formed in this book, stop as we realize that we could all be these people. I'm not saying any of us has gone out and murdered a dog but we've all done crazy emotional things that through the eyes of Christopher would be silly, irrational and pointless. The author Mark Haddon has an excellent way of subtly sliding things into perspective where we realize we're reading about ourselves.

Anyways, that's my quick book reviews of the day:
Rule of Four- Don't bother, go get a good Agatha Christie book instead (I highly highly recommend And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd).
The Curious Incident of the Dog... - Give it a go. You'll enjoy it.

I'm currently enjoying The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. While I'm only about halfway through, so far it's been the best book I've read this year. Of course it did win the Pulitzer. So hey, it should be right?

Until next time you wascily wabbits: episode one of the strip finished here.