Affected

Without realizing it, thanks to ATPM, I've been drawing one cartoon per month so far this year. You may recall about a year ago I changed department and my cartoon production pretty came to a halt. Having no access to a whiteboard, my medium of choice at the time, was one surmountable problem, but lacking an appreciative audience was a bigger problem. I was physically separated from my fan base and in the end they were terminated altogether. I tried to get back to cartooning and thought making a New Year resolution to draw a 'toon every month would help.

What really helped was that ATPM's long-time regular cartoonist, Matt Johnson, needed a break. I stepped in to fill the void, in addition to my regular software review "job". Usually I try to make the cartoon go along with my review. Still, it was not easy coming up with ideas as I really have to have my heart in it to do the 'toon. This latest one I only came up with the idea on Sunday March 29 then finally actually drew it on March 31 - during lunch break at work. I brought a drawing pad, pencils, and an eraser to work and did the pencil sketch in the cafeteria - no interruptions from Plurk, Facebook, or email. It is good to be disconnected sometimes. Inking, scanning, and adding speech bubble (via Comic Life) was done at home in the evening.

Enjoy! If all goes well, I'll have 12 new 'toons added to my portfolio for 2009!

Resolutions 2009

I just reviewed the resolutions I made for 2008 and not surprisingly, I did not stick to any of them. I might have had a short period when I actually went to bed at 11 PM and got up 6 AM the next day to go jogging, but alas it did not last that long. I did not get any handier around the house. I drew a whopping handful number of cartoons, not the twelve I should have done for the months of the year. And so on. What can I say, resolutions, rules, promises... they all are made to be broken. But what the hey, I'll make another list for 2009, a shorter list, with preferences for things I want to do and things that I need to do.

1. Health is a popular topic for resolutions, so here again I would like to make it the top of the list. Yes, I will try again to have better sleep hours. On those mornings that I stayed up til 1 AM the previous nights, I felt really crappy. Why I kept doing it to myself I don't know. Early to bed, early to rise, let's hope it will come true in 2009.
2. I hate my job so much more lately I really need to change career. Again working with the slippery concept that I can succeed in the cartooning world, I will again try to put more effort into it. It is no longer true that I don't have any ideas of what to draw. I actually have two right now, one with the punchline "I want to make my numbers look good", as in when managers make their underlings do ridiculous things just to arrive at some numbers on their dang reports, regardless how wasteful of the underlings' talents. The other has the punchline, "If you do not stick your head in, you won't get whacked." Like those times when you are supposed to be off from work. As long as you don't appear on Instant Messaging, nobody will ping you. Whatever, here's hoping for twelve cartoons for January through December of 2009.
3. Learn a new technical skill. My job has gotten so tiresome there is no time to learn anything new. It always is sink-or-swim. Work just piles on and on and mistakes will be made. Or poor maintenance will occur. Working in parallel with my cartooning path, I want to pick up some new technical know-how. There are many free computer-based training courses on the corporate network. I will just need to invest some of my own time to take them. Maybe some of those courses will even help me earn a few points in Yahoo!Answers.
4. Be more organized in meatspace. Spend at least a day each month de-cluttering my room. My house does not get any bigger with time, so the stuff in the house must be cleaned up more frequently. There is only so much room for so much stuff.

That is all. Instead of ten things that I cannot fulfill, for 2009 I am less ambitious and have just four things to not fulfill. What are your resolutions?