Promises Promises

I got hit with another (or possibly the same) computer virus this week.  This time I gave up and just wiped everything out, let my fella completely re-build my system which is probably what I should have done in the first place.

It’s an incredibly maddening experience.  So I went through all of my links and bookmarks and killed a bunch, (not that I can prove it) I suspect could be the hosts of my computer badness. The first of which was the Baroness’s forumspring account.  As I said, I can’t prove it, but this whole mess started when I set that thing up so out it goes!  Too bad though,  it was great to interact a bit with you readers.  To that end, I’m still open to comments on the site or the facebook page, and I do my best to reply to emails promptly. Thanks again to all who posted questions, it was fun while it lasted.

This is the big Toronto Comic Arts Festival weekend!

Although I’m not exhibiting this year, Brian and Zub will be along with loads of other super gifted writers, artists and guest speakers. It’s one of my favourite events in the city and hey, just in time for Mother’s Day!  So, head down to the Toronto Reference Library and check it out! Bring your Mum or at least pick her up some nice comics.  Mum loves comics.

All right!  As of this post, I am officially caught up to my recovery from the great nasty-virus-protection-racket of March…And it’s only going into the second week of May….Woot!

I’m still doing my best to catch up, and now that all of the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted I think it’s ok to announce the big news in my little world.  Just after I got my computer back up and running, I found out we would be moving to a new town.  So I am leaving for London Ontario next month.

Anyone who has ever dealt with the buying and selling of property will validate me in saying that it is a stressful, time consuming, disorganized process.  Every time you try to sit down and work you get the boot so someone can some snoop around your house.  Thankfully, we had two of the best realtors I’ve ever encountered on our team, Shelley Weichel and Blair Patton, who made the whole process as painless as possible, if it wasn’t for all of the house work, I’d actually say they were both a lot of fun, but honestly, vacuuming makes me really bitter.

So, the catch-up will continue through the end of June, after the move is settled a bit I’ll get back to posting the Weekend Weigh-ins and general blogging.  If the comic isn’t caught up by then I’ll just start posting forward. I’m having nightmares about sitting at my desk on New Year’s Eve like Charlie Brown, only instead of reading War and Peace I’ll be inking the Halloween comic.

You may or may not have noticed, I’ve attached a link to The Baroness’s forumspring on the left sidebar.  Thanks to everyone who has sent her questions, she has been tackling the really tough issues, like the importance of not dropping the soap.

The recent back-dated posts have raised some questions from my RSS feeders so I’d better give a little explanation here.

March was an out-of-control month for me.  Which is not to make excuses, because I was still penciling  whenever I got the chance, but finding sit-down inking and Photoshop time was difficult.  So there are a few weeks of blue-penciled comics scattered all over my home office here waiting for my attention.  The reasons I’m doing the back-dating dump instead of just moving forward into April are that the boot-camp comics were pretty time-frame topical and I’m still holding onto my goal to have enough comics made by the end of the year to put a book together and that means I gotta do the make up work.

So, if you’re lost, check back to HERE, that’s where this story line started and read forward, there’ll be some one-of gags scattered in too but the boot-camp bit runs through the whole month.

I’m a big fan of the food network.  It’s my channel of choice at the gym and easily my most-clicked link on line.

Alton Brown of Good Eats has been a favourite of mine and my Dad’s for a while. He’s really entertaining and clearly knows his stuff, but recently he’s lost a lot of weight and did an episode on how he did it without “dieting”.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m linking the youtube videos I found below.  He gives a lot of great information about the distinction between eating energy dense  foods, (caloires) and nutritionally dense food, (water, fiber, vitamins, minerals etc)  and that is exactly what will make or break a weight loss plan or transition into healthier eating habits.  If you’re eating nutritionally dense food, you’ll feel fuller longer and once you’re out of the habit of eating the sweeties and the salties, you won’t have that deprived feeling.

In Alton’s case, he broke his plan down into lists:

Things to eat Daily

- Fruits
- Whole Grains
- Leafy Greens
- Nuts
- Carrots
- Green Tea (there it is again! I have to remember to do that tea-post)

Things to have at least 3 times a week

- Oily Fish
- Yogurt
- Broccoli
- Sweet Potato
- Avocado

Things to only have once a week

- Red meat
- Pasta
- Dessert
- Alcohol

Thing to eat – Never

- Fast Food
- Soda
- Processed meals/frozen dinners
- Canned soup
- “Diet” anything

You’ll notice the Never list is all food loaded with salt, chemicals, preservatives and sugar.  Things we know aren’t any good for us and by comparison, aren’t nearly as tasty or pretty as the stuff Alton puts together on the show.

Live and let diet pt 1

Live and let diet pt2