This week I've decided I would try a change of pace and actually start drawing some of the things I've been thinking about instead of just thinking about it at work, when it's too late to do anything. I've also been thinking about how much time I spend online every day, and remembered that there was a time in my life when I didn't have Internet access, and spent all of my spare time doing other things. Granted, few of these things were very constructive, but I think I still spend a little too much time dinking around online. So I'm going to try to cut down a bit.

My wife and I celebrated our first anniversary over the weekend. We didn't do anything terribly special, but we relaxed together and enjoyed it. We had dinner at our favorite German restaurant, the Black Forest Inn, which was good but not nearly as good as the last time we went; everything tasted bland this time. Probably my fault for choosing the Wiener Schnitzel instead of getting my hands greasy and going with the Hassenpfeffer, which is rabbit meat that you pick off the bone. Still, I think I'll try to schedule my next visit so I can have the Sunday special, the name of which I forget but I remember that it involves spicy pork and apple dressing. Mmmm.

We went to see "American Splendor" at the Lagoon, a movie about Harvey Pekar, the writer of a comic book called (as you might imagine) American Splendor. The comic book was about his mundane, dreary life. The movie was about the same thing. This might sound, well, mundane and dreary, but it was actually a really good movie. I suspect that what helped sell the comic book American Splendor - aside from the fact that at least some of the issues were drawn by Robert Crumb - is that Harvey Pekar is such an odd, creepy-looking guy, and that he's blunt to the point of social awkwardness. The movie was well-done, about his life and times and all that, with the real-life Harvey narrating and occasional interviews with him interspersed. There's a small amount of animation, and generally the whole thing blurs the lines between the comic book and his own life, which is kind of the point. One of the things they managed to get across was Harvey's desire for his comic to be about realism. Despite the animation and the weird events of Harvey's life (like his numerous appearances on Dave Letterman), the movie achieves the same thing: it's a straight-faced look at strange people living out their lives and making a family, as well as saying something about the nature of The Media and popularity. I hate using this term, because people so often abuse it as an excuse for irresponsible profanity (in all senses of the word) in their creative endeavors, but this movie is very "real" without being pretentious.

Anyway, we liked it. Great soundtrack, too - all jazz music. The Lagoon, if I hadn't mentioned, is one of those little movie theaters in the downtown Minneapolis area that shows independent movies. In their little indy movie magazine they were advertising for Bruce Campbell's movie, "Bubba Ho-Tep," which I hope means that they'll actually be showing it at some point in the near future. They also mentioned an odd-sounding foreign animated film called "The Triplets of Belleville," for which there was a preview at the movie we saw. It looks strange and fun. The creator mentioned Tintin as an influence, so I was already somewhat interested (not that I've read a lot of Tintin, but I like the backgrounds); the preview clinched it.

The people at Portfolios.com called me last weekend, telling me they liked my artwork. At first I was flattered, but then I figured out that it was part of a sales pitch. They convinced me to upgrade my portfolio to their Platinum Titanium Adamantium whatever deal (though they gave me a big discount because I'm a student), so now I can display up to 20 pictures instead of just 5. I'm also supposed to be listed in the first few pages on their search engine, which means that there's a better chance of a company contacting me to do some freelance work. We'll see if anything actually comes of it, but if you wanted to see more of my work, now you can.

I'm adding a link to Lileks.com - the website of James Lileks, author of The Institute of Official Cheer and a bunch of other humory goodness, including The Bleat, a daily column (well, actually, it's a blog, but it feels more highfalutin' than that because he's a Real Live Newspaper Columnist). He's very funny, feels the same way as I do about Quentin Tarantino, and he's a Minneapolis local.

Okay, I've got artwork to do. Why don't you go do something constructive, too?