I’m so tired of hearing about the recession. It’s all forecasts of doom and destruction these days on the tv and radio and I suppose that’s half of the problem. I understand that people should be informed, but perhaps people should also be intelligent enough not to panic when the media tells them something. It ends up in a frenzied circle of people wanting to know more about the horrible things and the media feeding more horrible things to them until everyone sits at home moaning about how everything is wretched and destroyed.

Don’t get me wrong - I feel sorry for the people who lost their jobs and houses and I wish them all the best, but I don’t really care about the bankers and their bonuses or any of that crap. Maybe they do get too much money, but is it really necessary to pin the blame on someone foe this whole thing? Maybe we weren’t careful enough in our own finances. Maybe we were living beyond our means. Maybe we contributed half of the problem by not just carrying on as normal when the first reports came out instead of hiding our money in mattresses and counting pennies. I realize there are problems, but FUCK people, calm down! Maybe I have a weird stance on this stuff but I was poor before. I can honestly say that things really aren’t that different for us. In fact, we’re probably better off now than we were before. Maybe I’ve just simplified all of this and I don’t really understand things at all. That’s actually fairly likely to be the case, but maybe I’m a little bit right too.

I know nothing about football. Non Americans, I’m obviously talking about American football. I realize that they stole that name from its rightful owner and that not much foot action occurs. Anyway, I never learned to play it as a child and never knew how to throw a football. My dad never watched football or talked about football. Basketball was more his thing and so therefore it was more my thing as well, as much as any team sport could be my thing. At school, the boys would all run out to play football during recess and I would walk around in a sort of lonely wistful way. I probably walked around in that way looking really intelligent, yet not without a very hip edginess. Yes, that’s it.

I really hate how men talk about football all of the time and there are all of these terms I hear in passing and I often like to hop into the conversation and repeat these terms knowing full well that the way I use them doesn’t make sense. In fact, I intentionally make less sense than I possibly could just to stick it to them. This year I didn’t have any idea the Superbowl was going on until it had ended and even then I didn’t know who had played until much later. Sometimes I wish that I could just be a normal person, watching football and drinking beer with my buddies and having a grand time. Instead, I learn about poetry and literature, make comics for an almost nonexistent web based audience, play video games, meditate to attain oneness with the universe and become unnecessarily freaked out when required to speak to another human being. Also, why did I put a strange Middle Eastern war background on a Superbowl comic? Your guess is as good as mine.

This happens to me way too often. I’ll be laying on the couch or on the bed, sleeping like the angelic figure I am and suddenly I will awake to an abrupt impact. Full of fur and claws and noises, I’m wrenched from the sweet escape of sleep into the cruel world of face destruction. It should be apparent that this is quite startling. Sometimes I end up with nothing other than intense anger and fear, about half way to a heart attack. Other times I end up with scratches on my face. Yes, my cat jumps on my face while I’m asleep.

I must stress that this isn’t her normal frame of mind. This particular cat is normally calm and quiet and very docile. One could say that her personality actually borders on shy with strangers, but she is a very loving cat. For reasons unknown to me, she sometimes just goes completely mental. She’ll be standing there and suddenly she’ll be fleeing from unseen foes, doing battle with ghosts or something. She runs around and lets nothing get in the way of her complete and utter domination of this imaginary evil, even if it means sacrificing her own master’s face. Someone please explain this to me, and help me end this horrible thing once and for all.

P.S. The next comic will be up next Thursday, but there may be one in between this one and that one.

Join HandRooster on Facebook
Follow HandRooster on Twitter
Subscribe to HandRooster on Identi.ca
Subscribe to the HandRooster RSS feed

Join Mike on Facebook
Follow Mike on Twitter
Subscribe to Mike on Identi.ca
Subscribe to the Riding the Wind RSS feed

During this supposedly horrible economic climate, who can we turn to for our gaming needs? Should we give up gaming altogether and start selling apples or something on street corners? I think not. The good news is that there are some crazy deals around on games right now so there is no need to go without entertainment during this time of doom and despair. Yay! Instead of dealing with real life doom and despair, let’s experience doom and despair in games instead. Externalize the problems, people. Take it out on the zombies.

So if you don’t know who Cheapy D is, then I suggest you get familiar with he and his cohorts. He runs a good gaming podcast with a man who poses as a wombat. This Wombat character is one of those guys you either hate or you love, but I don’t see how anyone could hate Cheapy. He’s like one of those animals everyone loves. Think of him as the panda of the discount gaming world. Anyway, he finds deals on games, talks about gaming news, etc. and he runs Cheap Ass Gamer. The website is a good source of information about gaming in general as well as deals and reviews, and its user base is quite large. They’ve also got UK deals on there now too, so everyone over here doesn’t have to feel left out. Anyway, I’m not an extremely active member of that community or anything, but I enjoy the CAGcast (wish they had more on PC gaming) and I follow some of Cheapy’s antics online. I especially like his food pictures (he lives in Japan) and his videos on Youtube.

Anyway, if there are deals out there, he’s sure to know about them. If only he could perform miracles as our friend Glasses Man seems to think.

Ah, yes. The economic crisis. This is the part where I tell you everything is going to shit, forcing you to panic, thus creating more of the aforementioned shit for you to panic about. That’s my take on it, at least. Having said that, I am not an economist, I don’t know anything about banks or stocks or bonds or money at all, really. The whole situation doesn’t really scare me because I was already poor to begin with, and have very little of monetary value to lose. Unless we’re going to start losing legs or something, you can count on me not really caring all that much. But yeah, I tried to find a job and I couldn’t….that sucked, but I’m going to stubbornly refuse to associate the 2 things with one another. I’m currently doing a bit of work as a freelance writer, not that I’m making any money at it. Ha!

The global economic crisis is fortunately not the real reason why I am now doing the drawing, but I am doing the drawing nonetheless. You may notice some really crappy things here and you may notice that my style throughout the drawing is not consistent. This is main because I suck. It was hard for me to figure out what the hell I was doing and by the time I finished I had a much better idea of what I’d like to do next time. Unfortunately, by that time I couldn’t be bothered to do it all over again, as I’m sure you’ll understand. What is important is that I am here, you are here, and we’re connecting through time and space using mind power.

I’m currently using Sketchpad Pro and Photoshop to do these comics and we’ll see if it stays that way. I’ve got Steph’s trusty Wacom Tablet perched precariously on my desk and I shall be making myself familiar with its sleek exterior and technological devilry. I hope you’ll stick around with me as I figure this stuff out. Right now I’m going to stick to one comic per week, probably on Thursdays to make it a normal thing. I may increase the number of comics once I get better and the drawing, but no promises as to when that may occur. It also depends on the reception of the comic, as drawing for a lone bachelor cricket isn’t really my idea of a fun time. As for the site, you’ll see very little different. Most changes were internal and after speaking to several people about the design I decided to keep it relatively close to what it was. There are differences, but you’re unlikely to spot them unless you’ve spent as much time looking at the site as I have. You will probably notice the advertising, though. This is mainly just an attempt on my part to pay for the domain renewal costs and maybe buy a candy bar at the local gas station. I don’t think I’ll be getting rich off of these ads and I tried to fit everything in with the overall site design so that it isn’t too annoying.

Anyway, I welcome you back to the new one man HandRooster show. Expect a comic next Thursday, spool up your feeds and refresh your bookmarks. Join us on Facebook, Twitter or Identi.ca. I hope you’re all bravely fighting through these hard times and not binging on brandy and pills. As for me, I’m just sitting here.

Follow HandRooster on Twitter
Become a fan on Facebook

If you know what I’m up to other than this, you can find me at:

My Website
My Facebook Writer/Author page
Twitter
Identi.ca

I’m doing a bit of shameless self promotion here. Like many people, I’m out of a job. I’m trying to get into freelance writing and I’ve got some information on ridingthewind.net about my services.

What I really wanted to find out was whether there are any poetry fans here. I’m conducting a poetry experiment at my website (which I just posted above) in which I ask people to send me themes and titles for poetry and other writing forms and then I’ll write and post the results at the site. If you’re interested head on over there or just send me a title or theme to mj@ridingthewind.net. You can also Follow me on Twitter or Become a Fan on Facebook. If it isn’t for you, that’s fine too.

As I’ve said before, I would like to come back to HandRooster. I just don’t think I can convince Steph to do it. Thanks for the support.

~Mike

EDIT: Sorry for anyone who saw the first version of that. Stupid Wordpress Visual mode was on and I thought I had it in Code mode. Should be fine now.