Under the Big Top

  • by Drew

Is that reference too obscure? If you shout back “Perplexed!” your New German Cinema chops are most impressive. If you start humming “My Son” you have a real problem.

Actually, I bring up the ol’ circus tentage, it’s because the wife is getting very excited about the baby’s upcoming second birthday. It would seem we’ve selected a circus theme…and response has been pretty positive. The brothers are particularly excited. And the suggestion of face painting and photo booths…yeah, they’ll go nuts.

Not sure how you nail a personalized birthday gift with a circus theme, but we’ll come up with something.

And one other thing I have to say…

CLOWNS!!!

The Heroes are Coming

  • by Drew

Soon. Very soon. Yup, soon I will be posting links to my newest project: Skateboard Heroes. It is a comic book (with some musical tie-ins) and it is going to rock. You know I’m not into exaggeration and hyperbole or whatever, so you can take this pretty seriously when I say it is going to be the absolute best and coolest thing you’ve ever read and/or heard. Ever.

Seriously.

Actually, when you stop chuckling, take this to heart – it actually should be pretty entertaining. It’s comic art based on photography, and the story is entirely inspired by my kids.

What can you look forward to in the first issue? How about hardhats, guns, car chases, thugs with stockings on their heads and lots of skateboarding. No, no sexy camouflage lingerie. Not yet anyway…

Anywhere I lay my head…

  • by Drew

You know what costs a pretty penny these days? Mattresses. Seriously. We just did a bed rotation among the kids and found out. See, the baby isn’t ready for a bed yet, but she will be someday, and the middle kids had a kind of crappy bed. It’s fine for him since he’s light, and it will be fine for the baby because she will surely be even lighter, but my chunky butt really puts a dent in the thing.

So I figured when all the President Day sales were happening we should buy a new bed. We got a full for the oldest boy with the biggest room. We moved his really nice twin to the middle kid, and we stuck the extra mattress and box spring in the attic for when the baby is ready.

The logic behind the full was that we could have a bigger bed for friends who want to stay over. It may not be a hotel king, but for an overnight, any two reasonably sized adults could get a decent nights sleep.

Yup, we’ve substantially increased our ability to host sleepovers without reliance on the air beds. Yeah. We rock.

A New Frock

  • by Drew

Yeah, the site needs a new outfit, don’t you think? I’m bored with the photo montage nonsense. But since I’m a  WordPress user, there are some limitations to the templates and such. At least for me, not being a php-maestro. I’m old school. I’m not against innovation. Read the wix reviews, if a Flash site is your thing, have at it. Lately, though, I’m seeing so much expansive design. Huge images and flashy animations. It can pretty cool, no doubt, but are all of these sites serving their purpose.

I remember back in the day when designers has to actually consider file size. We had to think about bandwidth and server load. These days optimization is an almost forgotten art. DSL and cable modems have made sensible design passe, a thing of the past.

I, for one, mourn the loss.

Weather or not…

  • by Drew

I’ve always said I love the seasons. And it is true. Even when we have 73 feet of snow in a winter. I still love the seasons. I don’t even really mind the clean up. It’s a drag sometimes. Sometimes my eyebrows get all iced up and the blow back from the snowblower is stinging and blinding. My back aches from the shoveling. Then the snowblower breaks down and I have to shovel about a half million cubic yards of ice and snow so we can walk the kids down the driveway to the bus stop (because there’s NO way there spending one more day at home, the little maniacs!) And the power goes out and we start pricing honda generators, saying “next year, maybe if we get a decent tax refund or something.”

Still, in spite of all the challenges, I still love the seasons. I really really do. Except for one thing. All the people who are bitching and moaning about how cold it is are going to be bitching and moaning about the heat in a couple of months. “It’s ridiculous!” they will exclaim. “This humidity is total bullshit!” they will shout. And I’ll be wishing I could drown out the whining with my snowblower…

Then again…

  • by Drew

Yeah, you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be too worried about the skin of midwestern crooners with puffy lips and all of their musical talent below the neck. In other words, female singers made for video, not radio.

Considering the amount of joking I’m doing about this whole rapture thing, chances are I’d be left behind on my couch even if I did believe in such manufactured nonsense. (And I say that because it’s actually not in the bible – not the way these wackos talk about it. Read it sometime, it’s actually a pretty neat book.)

Still, if there is even a whiff of truth to it all, I’m going to be the guy looking for a stash of eczema cream because I can tell you now brothers and sisters, it is gonna be a scorcher.

Testify!

End of the World Party

  • by Drew

If it is all coming apart in May, I think I want to have party. Agood one. We can screen Until the End of the World and drink good wine waiting to see who gets left behind. I’ll make sure we invite a lot of our non-Christian friends…just in case we actually get sucked up into the sky. That way there’ll be somebody to clean up afterwards.

Okay, I know I’m riffing on this a lot, but anytime someone who doesn’t believe in science uses a calculator to come up with a significant apocalytic date I have to be…sceptical. Although I have to admit that the possibility of a pseudo-celestial location where acne treatment for our leading blond divas is a thing of the past…it just seems super fair, don’t you think?

The High Cost of the End

  • by Drew

Okay, so if the end is nigh and all that, can someone explain the economics of the thing to me? I’m already staggered by the fact that the “end of the world” peeps were able to get a short term lease on the billboard. I mean, in outdoor advertising I thought you needed at least a year-long commitment.

Actually, that’s a funny thought. Can you imagine the negotiations? The guy renting the billboard is like “Oh yeah, I’ll totally pay you in full in June. No problem.” It’s like Wimpy on Popeye: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

“I’ll gladly pay you after the rapture for a world is ending billboard today.”

Come June they’ll be pulling all the lint out of their pockets: “Ooooh, my bad. I really thought it was ending this time. Turns out we just needed a good colon cleanse. The rapture ain’t coming for years.”

The End is Nigh

  • by Drew

Did you know the world is ending? Yup. Sometime in May. I know this because I saw it on a billboard. You may think I would have paid close attention and taken the date down…need I remind you I am a VERY safe driver? I don’t get distracted by things like cell phone calls and texts. Not even the imminent end forecast on a larger than life billboard takes my attention off the road.

Am I surprised? Not really. I’m starting to see that this was all predicted by the coming of the lard-butts and the rise of Walmartistan culture. Let’s face it, the best appetite suppressants are not at the forefront of the mind when the end is right over the horizon line. Why not chow down and bulk up because I don’t think they have high fructose corn syrup in heaven. Unless you eat the cheap generic store-bought brand of manna.

You can’t make it up

  • by Drew

I was in one of the big Department stores a few weeks ago. It was Target or K-Mart or some-Mart or other. One of those places where the stay-in-bed Moms (to borrow from Arrested Development) pseudo-shop in their designer yoga pants and Ugg (as in Ugg-leeee!) boots and get all blackberry boldwith their BFFs.

There was actually a pretty cute shirt for little girls. I even considered one for my baby girl, but they had no extra-super-tiny on the rack, so I had to move on. The design was a map of the United States with each state carved out and represented by its license plate. It was a cartoonish illustration, not photographic or anything, and had a youthful and almost sweet patriotic feel. Red, white and blue? Red, white and you, Baby! Best part, the caption: American Girl.

Indeed. So sweet. How could you not love this and want one for your daughter to wear every patriotic day of every patriotic week? Of course, being the schmuck I am, I had to take a look inside. Egads, what did I find? You guessed it – Made in El Salvador. I guess now we can even outsource the American Dream to save some scratch for the Ugg boot Moms.

Rock on on, little ladies.

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.