The Internet is a funny place.

This past week, I’ve taken kind of a beating online. First there was a post on my Facebook page that wished me a happy birthday, but pretty much called me a sexist at the same time (said post was removed without asking by the poster, so bygones are bygones). Then there was a comment on The Watchtower site in response to my post a few weeks ago.

I was actually kinda bummed and a little hurt by both of these incidents, and it got me thinking about what a strange world the Internet is. A platform for anyone to spout off about anything without fear of reprisal, or the necessary things one usually needs to make and argument like, y’know, facts.

In the case of the Facebook comment, once I saw that it was removed I assumed that it was one of those things that might have sounded good in one’s head, but has a totally different context online. I’ve made those mistakes before, as I’m sure that everyone who communicates online has, so no harm no foul.

The Watchtower comment stuck with me though. Not just because it was something of an attack on me regarding issues that this person clearly has with Diamond Distribution, but because of the amount of time and effort the person has put in, and continues to put in, just to tell me I suck. I understand that on the Internet, you gotta have a thick skin, and I do. It was just a little strange is all.

Which brings me to the other side of why the Internet is so great. It also provides people who read those kinds of remarks an opportunity to respond to them, and show a guy like me that there’s a lot of people out there who dig and support me, for which I am continually amazed, and incredibly grateful for.

So yes, this has just been a roundabout way of saying, “Hey, thanks!” to those that leave comments on any of the sites that I frequent. Even the bad ones, because those are the ones that really stick with you and in an odd way show you how great people on the internet can be.

Sadly, I’m still waiting. But any day now, I know they’re gonna kick in. Any day now.

So in addition to being my birthday (for which I thank everyone for the wonderful wishes) Monday was also a special day all over the world: International Women’s Day.

A bit of a discussion sprung up as to the origins of this UN-recognized holiday, so being interested in such things, I thought I’d employ a few of the skills I’ve learned in the media over the years and do a little research.

The idea of having an international women’s day was first put forward at the turn of the 20th century amid rapid world industrialization and economic expansion that led to protests over working conditions. It was initially proposed around 1909 by of all people, The Socialist Party of America. Over the next few years, it also marked the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.

In some countries, on International Women’s Day men give the women in their lives flowers, chocolates, and other small gifts. In Italy, to celebrate the day, men give yellow mimosas to women. In India, and Pakistan working women celebrate International Women’s Day every year to commemorate their ongoing struggle for due rights, despite facing many cultural and religious restrictions

If you want to know more about International Women’s Day, you can check out some facts here here here and here.

So there ya go! Don’t say we never learned ya nuthin’!!

I don’t know much about women. In fact, if you were to consult any number of ex-girlfriends, I’m sure you would find that I know virtually nothing about women. But I do know this: When a baby is born, nothing matters more than it’s weight and length. Men tend to forget these details, but women need to know. I’ve witnessed this first hand. So men, remember: Weight and Length. Write it down.

Also, it’s true it’s my birthday.

Generally I try and downplay my birthday. Not because I don’t like my birthday or am afraid of getting older, just because I like to keep my birthday a small and quiet affair.

By virtue of this post, I failed this year.

However, it’s worked out well. I just came from a wonderful dinner put on by my friends here in Montreal. It was warm enough this weekend that we were able to dust off the ol’ BBQ and cook up some burgers and dogs. I’m a simple man, and this was absolutely perfect after a long winter without a grill.

My parents had come through Montreal in Feb and brought with them a really cool gift: an antique radio. This thing is the size of a small dresser and looks so cool! It’s got an old rotary dial with the station names emblazoned on it, and is the first piece of furniture that I’ve owned that instantly fit into my living space.

Aside from that though, the big news that coincides with my birthday this year is the brand new car that we’ve bought for the shop. It is a really awesome set of wheels, and I’m loving cruising around in it. We’re going to do it up right with a sweet wrap and detailing package, so when it’s done pictures will be abound!

For now though, I must retreat into a cloud of thought and musings as I contemplate what life is going to be like one year older. Have I accomplished enough? Conquered enough countries? Filed enough frivolous lawsuits? Only time will tell, but I feel confident when I say that I think the best is yet to come.

It’s true; as you get older you tend to find that there are fewer, and fewer safe places in the house. In fact, after enough quarrelling, even your pillow isn’t safe.

Tonight was leftover night around the ol’ homestead. I was able to polish off the few slices of pizza and General Tao’s chicken that was taunting me from the fridge. I was also able to put to rest one of the greatest foods I’ve ever had that I wish I’d invented.

You’ve had chicken fried rice, and beef fried rice, but have you ever had…

Bacon Fried Rice?

It’s just as amazing as it sounds. Just when I thought I had explored all the different ways that bacon could be consumed, I find that I’m not even near the base of the iceberg, let alone the tip. Bacon once again proves that it is truly is the world’s most versatile food. Well done, pigs. Well done.

In other news, after a few raspy days I seem to be getting my voice back. It was very strange to not be able to talk, and I thank Ms. Katherine Curtis of Naked News for filling in for me on this week’s episode of The Watchtower. She always makes The Watchtower sound (and look) so much better. I’m looking forward to getting back into it though; I enjoy my routine and get jittery when it’s interrupted.

I forgot to mention that the event that left me exposed to the cold and wind that resulted in the vocal impairment was Nuit Blanche here in Montreal. I have never attended the Toronto version of this street festival, so I thought I would give this one a shot.

Essentially, Nuit Blanche is a chance for people to spend the night wandering a city visiting its museums and taking in it’s arts culture, all night, all free. There were four “zones” in Montreal, and fortunately everything I wanted to see what in our zone. The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art was a great experience, but the one that blew my mind was the McCord Museum that had an exhibit dedicated to the Irish in Quebec, who flocked here during the potato famine.

I like art museums, and the Contemporary art that I saw was certainly interesting, and some of it was downright gorgeous, and really made me think. But it’s the Historical museums that I really love. I can never get enough of history; I guess it’s the storyteller in me. I love to poke around our past, uncover the legends, and see the artifacts and pieces that those legends are centered around. If you are in Montreal, and looking for something to do, the McCord is where I would recommend you head. It’s a great time, a totally worth 3 days of silence.

Something has happened.

Something that is bringing great joy to some, while terror and sorrow to others.

Something that has changed the way life is, perhaps irrevocably.

Yes, that’s right. I have laryngitis and have lost my voice. I can’t talk.

This will be my only communication with the outside world, you people the only ones who will be able to receive and carry my message. Messages of great hope, great peace, and great sandwiches. But remember, with great sandwiches comes great coleslaw.

In other news, there is a great show on the Discovery Channel: Destroyed In Seconds. 30 solid minutes of things getting wrecked, either by natural disaster or human error. I find this kind of thing fascinating, because in almost all the scenarios, I find myself thinking one thing: Why is this person taping this? I mean, I’ve taped some strange things (including two girls reciting Shakespeare while sucking back helium) but if my life was in danger and stuff was blowing up, I gotta think I’d drop the camera.

OK, I’m not making sense and I have nothing more to say, so I am going to leave you with an amusing picture, that accurately represents how I feel right now.

It’s true. On this date, many years ago, the man who would become my partner, friend, and brother stumbled into this world in what one can only imagine was a spectacular display of crying and goo.

Come to think of it, that’s kind of how spent his last birthday too. Weird.

Any way, there have been a great many contributions to mankind during his lifespan that should be noted. For example:

1981 – MS-DOS invented.
1984 – The Apple Macintosh invented.
1985 – Windows program invented by Microsoft.
1990 – The World Wide Web and Internet protocol (HTTP) and WWW language (HTML) created by Tim Berners-Lee.
1993 – The pentium processor invented.
1998 – Viagra invented.
2001 – Apple Computers publicly announces their portable music digital player the iPod.
2008 - New inventions of 2008 include: smog-earing cement, high altitude flying windmills, bionic contacts, pig-urine plastic.

That last one’s my favourite.

So to you my friend, my partner, my brother, I say Happy Brithday and thank you for being around all these years, and for being you. You are one of the best guys I’ve ever known, and you’ve grown into the best man that I continue to know. I can’t even imagine doing this without you, and here’s to us beating the hell out of each other with canes and walkers in an old folks home somewhere, some day.

I swear to you, every one of those curling terms is real. You can look it up. Curling has always been a fascinating game to me, simply because I enjoy watching, have always wanted to try playing it, but have no idea how the hell it works. One day perhaps I’ll find myself tossing rocks out there. I look forward to the yelling.

Congratulations to Canada’s Women’s Hockey Team! The Canadian women are a force to be reckoned with, and it’s good to see their hard work pay off. Let us all hope and pray that the Men’s team has similar luck tonight, and hopefully through the weekend. I have to say though, having watched the Finnish team receive their bronze medals, I think they should be bumped up to Silver for their hair alone.

I’ll miss the Olympics once their over. Since I don’t really follow many TV shows these days, it was nice to come home and flip on the TV and have something interesting to watch, or even just leave on in the background. I like any kind of international competition, so I look forward to the next set. In hockey, I think it’s the World Championships in June, which are always completely ignored next to the NHL playoffs. Not unjustifiably so, but they do tend to be overlooked.

Today is a special day for another reason though. Today would have been the 78th birthday of one John R. Cash, known to the world as simply “The Man In Black.” I truly discovered Johnny Cash after hearing the recordings he did with Rick Rubin, and on the week of his birthday, American VI: Ain’t No Grave has hit the shelves.

I identify with Johnny Cash in ways that even I don’t understand. His sincerity and ability to overcome adversity have been huge influences in many areas of my life, and I am enjoying the hell out of Ain’t No Grave.

So as most of you know, my day job these days consists of kicking back and talking to people about comics. Oh, if it were only that simple…

Any way, I do talk to people about comics, and the vast majority of folks that I talk to have very similar questions. As I was writing up a more detailed FAQ sheet for The 4th Wall, I thought, “Hey, this would make a great post for the blog…”

I then spent 2 hours patting myself on the back and tore my rotator cuff. So, here are the top 3 questions I get about comics:

Q – How do comics work?
A – Most comic books are published in single-issue form once a month. Some series publish bi-monthly, or in rare cases quarterly. After a certain number of issues, or the conclusion of a story, the publishers will then put out a collected edition, or Graphic Novel. These usually come out in hardcover first, with a soft cover version a few months later. Many people like to wait for the collected editions because it provides a more complete story, with minimal advertising and nicer paper, as well as DVD-style extras. Think of it like a TV show: you can watch each individual episode as it’s released, or you can wait for the DVD box set at the end of the season.

Q – Where should I start?
A – Wherever you like! The best part thing about comics is that there are no limits on subject matter, story, or character. If you can imagine it, it can be a comic. So when it comes to starting, ask yourself one simple question: What do I like? What do I like in terms of Movies? TV? Novels? From there it’s easy to find a comic series or graphic novel that suits your tastes and will get you excited about the medium!

Q – Do I have to know everything about the last 80 years of comics to understand what’s going on?
A – Absolutely not. Most characters and books have about a 10-year cycle where the “universe” of the character gets made over. This is how characters that have been around for so long (almost a century in some cases!) can remain fresh, and relevant. There are many natural starting places for anyone looking into comics, and the sheer number of books available shouldn’t intimidate you. Most of them are stand-alone stories that can be read without any pre-existing knowledge, aside from the basics (i.e., Batman is Bruce Wayne, dead parents, Spoiler Alert). When it comes to series, a good store will have Volume One’s heavily stocked whenever possible to ensure you can start right from the beginning. There are also handy recap pages to bring you up to speed in most books, and at the very least, Google is a great resource!

So there you go, an introduction, brief as it may be, to comic books. In spite of their long history, and the BO that some comic fans emanate, the books themselves are not so scary after all!

I always look forward to the Olympics. I love the idea of competitions on a national scale, in sports that I am rarely exposed to otherwise. It’s always a great couple weeks, and I absolutely get caught up in it.

The Vancouver Olympics though seem to be somewhat bi-polar for us Canadians though. It’s a Games full of exciting highs (the first Canadian Gold on Canadian Solo) and bitterly disappointing lows (yesterday’s Hockey loss to the USA). What I find great though is that we aren’t being blown out in the events that we don’t take a medal in. If you notice there is usually a Canadian athlete in the top 5 of any given sport, and that just tells me that we’re in there and we’re competing, and not rolling over.

Some would say that’s just encouraging mediocrity, but hey, we are Canadian after all.

Overall Canada sits 4th in the medal standings. I think that’s pretty respectable, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the remaining days of the Games play out.

The Men’s Hockey game yesterday was really hard to watch. One of the greatest goaltenders ever to put on pads was scrambling around like he was back in PeeWee hockey. When your team out-shoots the other team 44-22 and ends up losing by one goal, it’s a frustrating thing. Fortunately, we’re not totally out of it yet, and hopefully we can pull it together against Germany, and bring about our own Miracle On Ice against Russia.

There’s so much pressure on these guys to perform on an international stage that I almost feel sorry for them. Then I remember the stacks of money they’ll be returning to after the Olympics, and I suddenly don’t feel so bad.

Please don’t take today’s strip as a stab at anyone, or any comic in particular. I actually quite enjoy a lot of true-to-life comics and graphic novels. But I think it’s something that can be relied on too much. I think everyone should write about what they know, what they experience and feel, but when you have a medium such as comics at your disposal where anything can and will happen, why not punch it up a few notches?

Then again, maybe I’m just cranky because of that nail-biter of a hockey game. Canada ekes one out against the Swiss, and even though I am morally opposed to shootouts, I’ll take the point. People in Canada always have ridiculously high hopes for their international hockey teams, and with the Olympics being on Canadian soil, the pressure is even greater. All I can say is after the unfortunate incident that was Turin 2006; I’m not taking anything for granted. This is on the Men’s side at least. When it’ comes the Ladies, just give us the Gold now and save yourselves some time.

In other news, I’ve been struggling to read a book lately. Sohmer lent it to me and, maybe some of you all know this already, they make books now that have no pictures in the whatsoever. Yeah, I know. They’re just called “novels” and they have no hit of “graphics” at all. It’s very strange trying to get into one of these “books” after being so immersed in comics for so long, but I’m getting there. Fortunately it’s a darn good read, so the transition’s been pretty easy.

And so my friends, since my life is so boring that we can’t even make comics out of it, I leave you for another week. While you are out enjoying yourselves this weekend, remember to be careful, and if you can’t be careful, name it after me.

Ooo! Ice Dancing is on! See you Monday!