January 20, 2011
8:03pm
Last night the septic tank in the apartment where I live and work went supernova. By that, I mean it exploded. Unlike stars in space, however, our septic tank cannot expand at the speed of light in an infinite number of directions. The contents of our overflowing tank can only move in one direction, which is down a 3 inch overflow pipe. I don't know who made the final decision to have said overflow pipe end in the basement of the apartment building as opposed to, say, literally ANYWHERE else, but I would love to hear their logic. My guess is the plumber responsible was at one point into competitive paint thinner sniffing. I'm not sure what the rules to that game are, but I know the prize is a pipe that shoots refuse all over the basement.
I wasn't sure what to do to fix the problem, but I knew I needed to stop the water (and I use that term, "water", very loosely) so I shut off the mains to the apartment building. The other tenants were not very happy about that. I told them there was a problem with the septic system and the ground directly under them was rapidly filling with sewage. They were less than sympathetic and still wanted their water on. I tried explaining to them that this was all their fault for using too much water in the first place, at which point they went from being mildly annoyed to openly perturbed. I didn't pay them too much heed, as I had bigger problems than worrying about making friends with the other renters.
Despite no longer being freshly feed, the septic tank filth repository turned filth spewer was still drawing ripe resources from the adjoining leech field and continued to redeposit them in the basement. The contents of the tank needed to be drawn, not discharged (again). There are several sanitation services that are infinitely more qualified to handle these types of problems. Sadly, none of them are staffed at 9pm on a Wednesday evening and thus we were left to our own devices. A pool vacuum attached to large water storage barrels was lowered into the tank to lower the contents level. The original plumbers were creative in their placement of the overflow pipe; it was only fitting the solution to the problems that decision created be equally creative.
After trucking off nearly 700 gallons of waste (or, in more relatable units, about 14 bathtubs full of refuse) we turned our attention to the standing water problem in the basement. A perfectly good shop vac was ruined sucking up the two to three inches of water, ruined because no equipment is fit for duty after going through what we put that vacuum through. This morning I nuked the crap out of that room (literally) with ammonia. Normally you distill ammonia with water and use it to clean, but not when you're cleaning up after what happened last night. Then you open a bottle of ammonia, dump it directly on the floor, grab another one, repeat. About halfway through my third bottle I began to feel my lungs changing color, from a healthy pink to a molting canary yellow, and I thought I might be getting a little carried away. But I ascribe to the axiom "better safe than sorry" and dumped another two bottles on there before running outside for some oxygen. Today the basement's clean again, but if you drop a sandwich on the floor down there you might just want to let it go, five second rule notwithstanding.
December 23, 2010
11:50pm
Why has no one told me about the movie "Brick" before? That movie is streets ahead. And in case you don't watch "Community" or "Scott Pilgrim", I'm trying to say it's awesome. Watch it. Neo noir is where it's at. And if you liked that one, check out "Assassination of a High School President". I liked "Brick" better, but "Assassination" is pretty cool too.
I didn't go to South Korea. I did apply for mortuary school. January 15 is New Student Orientation. I didn't ever expect to go to one of thost again, and I hate surprises so I probably wont go to this one. I should be able to find the library by myself, and I already know studying is important so I should probably do it.
August 31, 2010
8:42pm
Holy cow, the neglected blog page. This thing gets updated about as often as homestarrunner.com. The old blogspot blog gets a lot more frequent updates, if any of y'alls are dying for more Steven in your diet but it's pretty much the same stuff you see here everyday so don't expect too much: www.drepic.blogspot.com
There are a couple new things around the site- I finally figured out how to add an RSS feed so that's down there under the sidebar links. There's a Facebook "Like" thing in the About section, which is itself waiting for an overhaul slated to happen in the next couple days or so. (Update 09.02: it done got overhauled)
In Steven's life there's not too much to report on. I think I will end up teaching English in South Korea for a year starting in November or December. There's nothing really happening for me here in the States, job/dating/school-wise so picking up and leaving would require like next to no effort. Plus I'd like to be able to put my English degree to use, because honestly now that I have it I'm fully aware of how worthless it is. If somehow Korea doesn't work out (like if the guys upstairs decide to start launching nukes every which way) I could always go back to plan A and start mortuary school in January. I don't know. I haven't known for a while.
June 22, 2010
6:42pm
I've yet to accomplish a lot of things on my bucket list. I don't own an island. I've never been to outer space. I've never arm wrestled an aligator, nor do I know if it's legal to do so. At this point pretty much the only things I've been able to cross out have been "eat a large number or tasty sandwiches" and "bathe on a regular basis." I am a few steps closer to realizing one life goal I've had for a while- to make a nightshift steven cartoon. I've picked up a few new tools including a computer and pen tablet, so things should go a lot easier than they were when I was doing everything on a touch pad on my junky laptop. I've started on it already, and it's every bit as hard as I imagined it would be. I don't know when it'll be done- I'm hoping the end of July, but I'm not making any promises.
March 26, 2010
1:42am
So the t-shirts are finally done. I've also learned a valuable lesson in their production- before making a purchase (or committing yourself to) make sure you find out how much it's going to cost. I had the t-shirts printed on campus where a friend said it costs about $4.00 per shirt. Two weeks after I placed my order, I went to pick the shirts up and found out they cost a little less than $9.00 each. That put me over budget by, oh, about 100%. Anyway, which shipping and paypal fees, 13 bucks per shirt is about breaking even, so I hope to sell them all because a profit at this point is pretty much an impossibility.
Luckily I have other sources of income. Today was my 45th time subbing this school year, which means I now make $57 bucks per day as opposed to $50. Booyeah. I also was hired for that census job referenced in "Aptitude Test" which will start next week. I'll be working in an office, doing whatever (I'm not sure exactly what- I'll probably find out during training on Tuesday) from 4pm to 12am. Nightshift Steven lives on.
March 1, 2010
10:33pm
Hello readers. There have been a few changes to the website recently. First, Steven’s now featured in comics with multiple panels. The reason I stuck to single frames previously was I wanted to draw as little as possible, since working in MS Paint is and will always been a pain. MS Pain. But multiple panels haven’t been too bad- most of the frames are just Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V with a little touch up on the mouth or eyes (in case you haven’t noticed already…). Easy peasy.
Also the “comic” section on the sidebar now includes titles for every comic. Titles can also be seen if you rest the cursor over the image on the normal page.
I like the work of the guys over at penny-arcade.com. Their comics are aimed at a pretty nerdy niche, so I don’t know what conclusions I should draw that I find them funny. I like one feature on their site- along with every comic they draw, they do up a blog-type entry about its background. I’ll be doing likewise from here on out, and for older comics as well. You can see the story behind each comic (that is, if there is a story) by clicking on the comic itself.
The store should be up and running again with t-shirts. Stickers were not such a big hit, nor were signed prints. Hopefully some day in the distant future, this comic will be famous and all the merchandize that didn’t originally sell too well will be worth tons of money. It that’s ever the case, I’ll be sitting pretty because I still own all of it. Anyway, so far the only shirt has Steven’s profile on the breast pocket area. That’s pretty much the extent of my fashion design creativity.
Nightshift Steven only has 22 friends on Facebook. That's two people less than are in the group "When I drink milk and I laugh, it goes up my nose!" Please, add me as a friend if you haven't already. (Update 09.02: Steven's personal page has been deactivated. There's now a fan page- pretty much the same thing, only with fewer people knowing about it)
Well, those are the changes to the site. There are also changes to Steven’s life. They aren’t exciting or promising though. Typical.
Steven out.
January 13, 2010
3:42pm
I have a roommate who’s into UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). This same roommate essentially lives on the couch in our living room, so there’s a fair chance that almost every day there will be two dudes hitting each other on the TV. I can’t say I care too much for the “sport” (I find the sweaty spooning to hitting ratio way off) but I take issue with the name itself.
Things needed to be considered the ULTIMATE FIGHTING Championship:
-a cage
-thousands of spectators
-blood
-swords (they don’t have to be used necessarily, but they have to be accessible)
-Goro
-a dead loser
-cheerleaders
UFC’s got a few of the items, but is missing some critical ones. Until it gets with the program and lives up to its namesake, it will still be Ultimate Okay to Hug Your Opponent Between Boxing Championship to me.
January 11, 2010
4:08am
A few months ago I realized that not drawing comics was considerably easier than drawing them. Figures. So during the wee hours of the early morning, instead of updating the site I participated in less constructive uses of my time- watching cartoons on Adult Swim, reading Trival Pursuit Genius Edition 1984 cards to myself, turning all the items in my roommates' cupboard upside down and backwards, ect. It was nice to take a break, because being funny can be pretty difficult.
There were a few drawbacks resulting from new newly adapted apathetic attitude (besides a remarkable decline in hits on the site). While posting regular updates, I would be conscientiously looking for events or situations that I could later incorporate from my life into Steven’s. Making an effort to see the humor in life makes it a lot more bearable. Trying makes all the difference though.
Previously I drew these comics as a way to entertain myself while bored beyond belief at whatever job I happened to be working. I think from now I’ll be drawing them as a means to appreciate what happens- both the funny and decidedly unfunny things- in my life. I hope you enjoy them.
Thanks for visiting-
-Steven
.