Attention: Users of the Pull-Out Mirror

Sorry kids. No new comic today--I've been a little busy (and only getting busier, unfortunately). I'm afraid I spoiled you all by drawing so much in the past few weeks. But as some consolation, I did find this uh, anonymous notification posted in our bathroom yesterday, so hopefully it will tide you over until my next post:

Katie on: Patriarchy

The Sassy Spider Returns!

Or, well, it's like, a different spider, but it nonetheless gave me sass as I attempted to move it off of my backpack while studying in Starbucks today.

 

Also, I like imagining the spider sounds like this. You should try it too!

The Best Kind of Day*

*With a special guest appearance by the leaves from "Pocahontas"

Chances are I've complained to you about this before, but I would like to take this time to draw attention to a very serious issue in a public forum. For some unknown reason, by the time October rolls around in Montreal, there is not a single kernel of candy corn to be found. Now some might suggest that this is perhaps indicative of Montrealers liking candy corn a little TOO much--so much that just as soon as it goes on sale the last week of September, it's gone. But to that I say, "why not restock?" Rather, I happen to be of the opinion that Montreal does not appreciate the value of this seasonal candy. It has been my misfortune many a time to ask a grocery/drug store employee if their store carries candy corn, only to be greeted by a blank stare. Not know what candy corn is? The horror! As a result, I have gone candy corn-less the last three Halloweens, and truly, what is Halloween without candy corn?

Hence the three boxes I cradled lovingly in my arms as I walked home yesterday from Pharmaprix, to be saved until October, and rationed afterwards.

I am not alone in my candy corn love. For more candy corn art and appreciation, check out Tessa's blog.

Now I turn the discussion to you, readers: candy corn--yay! or neigh? (And unless you are of the equine persuasion, I better not see any of the latter).

Watercooler Buzz

That's what she said.

Still Life With Watermelon

While over at our apartment last week, Nigel offered to finish off the last 3/4 of Katie's watermelon, taking to the task with a fervor we've only seen once before.

Off-colour jokes were made.

It Wasn't.

For those of you who don't know, this is Fernando Torres. And this is the blog Katie essentially dedicated to her love of soccer (oh, excuse me, football) and yes, Fernando Torres.

The Best Thing Ever*

Katie and I made a special trip at lunch to see this. It was magical.

*It should be noted that it was Alex's eagle-eye that first spotted this masterpiece. Thank you Alex!

My Sister Is Amazing

My sister has now been at art school for like, 3 weeks, and already she's producing awesome work (not that I'm surprised, but still). These are wire outlines of a bell pepper sliced cross-wise. I'm so impressed, and evidently her prof is too!

More of Diana's artwork (from her college portfolios) can be seen on her blog here.

Pictures too small?

Just as a side note, although I assume most of you have figured this out by now, you can enlarge any of the comics by clicking on them, because I realize they're pretty small. This is annoying but I don't really know that I can fix that.

--The Management

A (Suggestive) Suggestion

Don't get me wrong: I love the BBC "Pride and Prejudice" mini-series, just the way it is. So I mean it no disrespect when I say that this would just...make it better.

This is one of the delightful things about watching a movie you've seen before, but with a new group of people. This addition is courtesy of a "P&P" viewing with the roommates two weekends ago.

It should be noted that Panels 1-3 do actually occur in the movie, although I'm pretty sure Jane Austen never even conceived of the notion of "tormented bubble baths," much less wrote the indecent exposure of one of her character's, um, nether regions at Netherfield Park.

Really, oven? REALLY????

Half an hour. That's all we asked. 30 minutes of uninterrupted "Office" season premiere. I don't think that's unreasonable, do you?

It should be noted that after this, the smoke detector continued to go off every few minutes for the remainder of the baking time. Windows were opened, insults were shouted (my neighbors are now intimately acquainted with just how I feel about "those damn cookies!"), and upon inspection, it seemed something in the bottom of the oven (and not my beautiful cookies) was responsible for the smoke. However, fixing the problem meant pulling out the smoking spilled food-covered foil from the floor of the oven, which meant getting out the oven mitts, which unfortunately meant this:

Here's a fun fact about me you probably wouldn't know unless you lived with me: I'm famous for burning things in the kitchen. Spatulas, wooden spoons, pots, dishrags. How I rationalize this is that a) I spend a disproportionately greater amount of time in the kitchen (cooking) than either of my two roommates, and b) when I cook, the probability of my using any given utensil is increased greatly. So in conclusion, it's not really my fault that I scorched half of the pair of mitts that so perfectly match our chair cushions. It's just probabilities.

And for all the grief they put me through, the cookies turned out pretty tasty. AND in case you were worried, Haley and I did in fact finish "The Office" season premiere, albeit 10 minutes later than we should have.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Adult Content Notice

A truly great Frosh leader will stand before you--sunburned and scabby-kneed, blistered and bandaged, covered in obscene graffiti--and tell you how fantastic a time she's having. This image, burned into my brain several weeks ago, was begging to be committed to paper...then posted on the internet for all to see.

Frogs and Toads and Newts, Oh My!

As my last post would seem to indicate, I usually have pretty keen eyes (and ears) for small furry (or scaly) critters scampering (slithering) around in my proximity. Hey, I once spotted a lizard four lanes over on a wall along the freeway while driving 65 mph. That counts for something, right?

Wrong. My first foray into frog-catching last Tuesday was an unholy disaster. It was for my Reptiles and Amphibians class, and as you can well imagine, I was so jazzed to be going on a field trip (when was the last time that happened?)--and a herp-hunting one at that--that I failed to acknowledge the possibility that I might SUCK, and that the other kids would be showing off all their SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE. However unforeseen, this was indeed the case.

After the first 20-minute forest search, I returned to the meeting place with an empty plastic bag, not having seen, much less caught, a single frog. If I thought that this was a common predicament, I was quickly corrected as one after another classmate arrived with squirming plastic bags. It was like being the only Jewish kid at a Christmas party, and while everyone else was unwrapping their slimy, hopping presents, I was left to look on jealously with nothing at all to celebrate.

Later, at a pond, knee-deep in mud with tall reeds catching at my shirt and pond-scummy sulfrous water splashed all over my jeans, I managed to get my hands on more than a few small frogs. So I guess the whole trip wasn't entirely a wash, even if I did nearly sink into the muck a number of times. It looked something like this:

And to think that I saw it on Mackay Street...

Today on my walk home from school, I saw a mouse--a real live one!

And then, in my excitement, I nearly put my hand through a spiderweb where a very unhappy spider twitched its legs at me in obvious displeasure.

The mouse was hanging out in a churchyard, which made me think of those sweet old church-mice in Disney's "Robin Hood" who were saving their last farthing (or something like that) for a rainy day. Before mean old wolf-Sheriff of Nottingham cruelly snatched it out of their tiny mouse-hands, that is.

In case you were wondering...

This is what we do when we say we're working:

To be fair to everyone pictured, last night there was real work happening in my apartment from 2 out of 3 roommates. The other one? Well, she was holed up in her room, drawing and watching the latest episode of "Mad Men." If you'd like, you can pretend the last laptop on the right has Don Draper's face on it.

So Many Kinds of Wrong

I was walking along Sherbrooke the other day when a woman in a motorized cart zoomed past me with this on her lap. Tiny dog, I pity you.

The Height of Sophistication

Jane Austen, Ring Pop, couch, sweatpants. Or, "How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon."

My Roommate is a Witch

This actually happened, I kid you not.

Praise for "More Than This Provincial Life"

Already, people are talking about "More Than This Provincial Life":

"You gave me man shoulders" -- Katie

"It's like a video blog, except the pictures don't move" -- Laura

"I would give my left nut to be able to draw like this" -- Haley

"The best Greek food I've had since Detroit!" -- Madonna

Comic the First

For the sake of this comic, let's pretend Panel 3 is intentionally a visual representation of a fantasy in which my arms will look like this if I start attending Zumba classes regularly (and not like, oh, hey, this girl can't draw arms).