(via BNLMusic) A MESSAGE FROM BARENAKED LADIES

By mutual agreement, Steven Page will be parting company with the remaining members of Barenaked Ladies. Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart will continue recording and touring together as Barenaked Ladies. Steven Page will pursue solo projects including theatrical opportunities while the band enters the studio in April 2009, and hits the road in the fall.

Page says “These guys are my brothers. We’ve grown up together over the past twenty years. I love them and wish them all the best in the future.”

The band also wish Steven well in all of his endeavors. Ed Robertson says: “It’s the start of a new chapter for all of us. Here’s to the future!”

Everyone is looking forward to making new music and thanks their fans for their support.

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Buh?

Ever notice that when you meet someone, for the rest of the time you know them you are always somehow stuck at the age you met them at? I don’t mean they treat you that way, I mean you treat you that way. This gets me all the time, and I hate it.

I have a group of friends that I met when I was something like 18 or 19 and they were all in their late 20′s or older (that’s a lie, I wasn’t the youngest but I was one of and there weren’t many and shut up my point stands) and I always felt like the kid. In your early 20′s a few years is a huge gulf. So I always felt like the kid in this group, no matter what. It wasn’t something they did to me or a way they treated me, no the feeling just came about because of my own insecurities and age. But now, years later, I see some of those people and I have to fight back the feeling that I’m this kid again.

We imprint.

Many of my closest friends are people I have spent enough time with that there is no age blocking, we’ve grown up together. I don’t just mean the few people from High School I still talk to but also a few folks I met right around the turn of the century.

And all of this is a preamble to why I am slightly twisty about going to SF later this month.

See I’m going to be staying with family. Now it is family I love dearly but let me explain. I will be staying with my sister and my nephew. I didn’t meet this sister until I was about 13. So when I met her (She’s ten years older than me? I think?) I was full of being 13 and awkward and unsure and meeting this person that I thought was really, actually, quite cool and I was just a kid.

I went to her wedding and hung out with her friends and they were awesome people but I was just a kid. So they tried to make me feel welcome but I was, say it with me, just a kid. And every time I see her I fall back to that. The defensiveness, the awkwardness, all of the shuffling and uncertainty just envelops me for a while.

I hate it.

My nephew is … young. I want to say 10 but he may be 11 and I feel like a jerk because I should know this. But either way he is what he is. And I hang out with him and I am caught between treating him like the person he is and trying to make sure I don’t leave him feeling like I did, that somehow he is the kid, and I think I make a hash out of it by even trying. Big shock, right?

Because when I see them I end up torn at first blush. I feel like a kid but I don’t wanna make him feel like .. and I kinda shut down. You know when I met him I think I came into the house, dropped my bags heavily on the floor, took off my sunglasses and said “guh.”

Now, granted I had flown out to L.A. the morning before, leaving my house at 4am, gotten to L.A. had meetings and then gone to bed at 2am L.A. time before getting up to catch a 6am flight to SF so I was a wee bit tired. But even still.

It isn’t that I came off like a bastard. I am a bastard. I just got hit by a wave of all that crap at once and didn’t know what to do. My amazingly fluid and deft way out of it all?

Guh.

And as I hung out more I got past it and all was right with the world. My nephew thinks I’m cool (this is how you can tell that he is either: A) young B) very sheltered C) heavily medicated or D) delusional) and I’m sure that will wear off. My sister thinks I am cool as well and she should certainly know better. For her sake I’ll limit it to D.

Still, I’ll be there for something like a week this time and I worry about this sort of thing. I want to be able to just be me around them. And sometimes I am, but not every damn minute. Sometimes I get caught in the trap. That’s just human, I know, but it annoys the crap out of me.

I never really do this, but I will warn you it will happen again in a few months.

I actively want your help to spread the word about stuff. I am writing two ongoing webcomics. Seriously, every single day of the work week you can read a new comic, in some form, written by me.

The first is Legend of the Burrito Blade which updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Legend of the Burrito Blade is an epic fantasy story set in modern-day New York. It is also the story of how mythology affects us and how we effect mythology. It is also the story of how we choose sides and what those sides mean. And, you know, it has food based weaponry and silliness and action and humor and everything else you might expect. We are nearing the end of Chapter One this week (only a few weeks to go) and things are building. This story is oddly dear to my heart, because how often to you get to do a grand action comic featuring swords with burritos on the end?

Not often, my friend.

The other webcomic is Things Wrong With Me and it updates every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s a strange beast. Well not for readers here, I suppose. For folks here it is Talking Heads, done somewhere else with original characters. Of course, they also have expressions. Fancy! Things Wrong With Me is all about six friends who sit around, like we all do, and talk about life, and the strangeness that falls out of our heads.

And here’s where the asking comes in. The more readers each comic gets the more able I am to do them, as advertising on the sites will begin soon. Also more people reading means more chances for them to tell other people and so on. And then the more chances to do merchandising, which might sound base and money-grubbing but I promise it is stuff you will like. Well, no, I don’t promise that but I strongly think it is true.

But readers are what make all of this happen.

I am not asking for your money, though. All I am asking is that you give each comic a chance yourself and, if you enjoy them, you tell all your friends, more than once even, and link to the sites and help me drum up readers.

To help I give you tools!

How to read Legend of the Burrito Blade:

• At its website: http://www.burritoblade.com
• Via RSS: http://www.burritoblade.com/feed
• Via LiveJournal: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/burritoblade

You can also use these icons on various blogs and such:

You can also use these small ads:

How to read Things Wrong With Me:

• At its website: http://www.thingswrongwithme.com
• Via RSS: http://www.thingswrongwithme.com/feed
• Via LiveJournal: http://thingswrong.livejournal.com/profile

You can also use these icons on various blogs and such:

I do ask that if you use the heads … you do not make fake episodes. Please? Seriously, actually, I would consider that a personal favor. And don’t use them to comment on the site itself, mmkay? Just oddly rude, really. But use ‘em! Enjoy ‘em!

Also here is a small banner you can use:

So yeah, I am asking you to actively go and pimp stuff with and for me. If you don’t want to I won’t hold it against you. If you decide to, I will appreciate it. Also let me know how else I can help you pimp stuff, if you want. Seriously. Do you think an image of X size that was kinda like Y would help your readers? An icon of whatever? Tell me and I will try to make it happen.

I am also more than willing to do a mini blog tour about both comics: Interviews, writing things for your blogs and whatever else you want, to help promote these.

So, if you could, if you are so inclined – help a brother out.

Thank you! Either way, truly, thank you.

APK: So did you recover from burrito explosion?

Hammerpants: Mostly….there’s a mostly inconspicuous salsa red blotch on my shirt, but my shirt is brown so it blends in….there is a much more visible blotch on my jeans however.

APK: Your time of the month, sailor?

Hammerpants: Yes yes, I have a vagina and I’m menstruating…thank you for pointing that out.

APK: No prob.

Hammerpants: Somehow my vagina is on my lower thigh however.  Not sure how that works.

APK: You’re Japanese?

Hammerpants: I….don’t even know how to follow that up.

APK: Raw fear?

Hammerpants: Well, medium rare fear possibly. Raw fear isn’t sanitary.

APK: Neither is your bloody thigh vagina.

Hammerpants: And now my coworkers are wondering why I’m convulsing in laughter, thanks.

(via Variety) Gore Verbinski to direct ‘Clue’

Universal has attached Gore Verbinski to develop “Clue,” a live-action murder mystery based on the Hasbro board game that he would direct.

“Clue” is one of the few board games to surpass $1 billion in sales, in more than 50 markets. It was developed in England by a retired legal clerk named Anthony Pratt during WWII and released in 1948.

A previous film version was released in 1985.

“Clue” will be turned into a mystery that Blind Wink senior veep Jonathan Krauss called “A global thriller and transmedia event that uses deductive reasoning as its storytelling engine.”

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Really? We need a Clue remake? REALLY?

I just found the best zombie shirt yet. This week. At least. No, this year, so far. It wins. I want one:

A few things for you to look at and possibly buy if you are so inclined!

First up is Ravens in the Library: Magic in the Bard’s Name, which is the benefit anthology to help out S.J. Tucker. This collection will not be in stores and is only available through that link. It has stories by Storm Constantine, Neil Gaiman, Terri Windling, de Lint … and lots more. Follow the link to see a bunch about it.

Then we have Wind Tunnel Dreams. A chapbook produced by Shira Lipkin, collecting all of her Wind Tunnel Dreams peices in one printed place. Which is quite awesome. Affordable and concise it is a great introduction to her work.

Finally today is the release date for Palimpsest, Catherynne Valente’s newest novel of magic, cities, trains, tattoos … it’s an odd and beautifully written book.

So there you go! Stuff to read, if you are so inclined! Enjoy!

Once again we come to the start of Mardi Gras! You know what that means, don’t you?

You have to earn these.

So I did not make the image I am about to show you. I was shown this image myself (Thanks Ariana! It’s via www.b3ta.com) and I found it to be so awesome I had to share it. Because I want to watch this show. I want to watch it like a motherfuck.

But after seeing that, how could I not write the following:

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by the Empire for a rebel crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security Death Star near Endor to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the Empire, they survive as pilots of fortune. If you have a problem, if no rebel leaders can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the AT-ATeam.

You can’t get Mr. AT-AT on no plane, sucka!

No one won the contest because no one entered. Fine, be that way.
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Anyway! Ed posted a picture the other day and I had to ask permission to repost it because I simply can not stop laughing. He bought a bad of bagel chips and on the bag it lists some health facts. Like the fact that it contains zero milligrams of cholesterol. Except the bag … well …

OMG! Cholesterol! I can not stop laughing at that. He read it as an OMG, which is why he took the pic and I read it that way, too. Stupid Intardwebs taking over our brains.

OMG! Cholesterol!

That has to a lot, doesn’t it? Like more than a little, at least…