THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that we’re all done drawing the scenes for show eight. The only thing left to do is it “time” the scenes in exposure sheets and send them off to Korea so that it can get “in-betweened”, “cleaned up”, and colored. So we’re very happy about that. Now I’ve found myself in the fortunate position of having nothing to do. No other shows needs help so I actually get to sit around and read, write, play on my computer, play on my gameboy, or generally goof around for the next couple of days. Next week I’ll be working on Lance’s new show, show sixteen. The “animatic” (first pencil test version of the show) for that show is due the week before Christmas. So we’ve got a bit of time.

The bad news is that the Hollywood writer’s strike begins today. Depending how long it takes to be resolved, we might not have any work. If the strike continues till the end of the year, then our “animatic” deadline is pretty much pointless since we do the “animatic” for them to be able to rewrite anything that isn’t working on the show before we finalize it. There really won’t be anywhere for an artist to go since all the studios will be effected. Many writers in the industry won’t be very effected by the strike since they receive residuals from shows they’ve written. We artists, on the other hand, don’t. I’ve got mortgage payments and bills to pay. We had to buy a new car recently because of the car accident my wife had four weeks ago and we pretty much tapped a lot of our emergency money for that. All the paychecks I get every week pretty much go straight to the bills. We don’t really get to save much of anything, so the strike is really going to be scary for us. Especially since we have a baby on the way. What if the strike lasts until our baby is born?

Lets hope everyone’s greed gets sated quickly.

BOARD GAMES

I can’t believe I got to play board games again this week. This is the third week in a row. I’m sooo happy, yay! My brother and his wife came over and we played three boardgames. I’m in the process of trying to play all the games I have that I haven’t been able to. I have a few games that I’ve had for a year or so that I haven’t been able to play yet. Well, three of those games we managed to play this weekend so that means I have nine left to play.

The first game we played was Loot. Loot is a pirate card game that’s designed by Reiner Knizia. It’s about trying to collect as many valuable merchant ship cards as you can by attacking them with your pirate ship cards. It’s a fun short game. It takes about twenty minutes to play. Everyone liked playing it. It really forces the player to think ahead and make tough decisions. My brother’s wife Deborah won the game.

The second game we played was The Bridges of Shangri-La, which is a game about taking over cities with students that get trained in opposing cities. It’s really fun and really cut throat. My wife doesn’t like cut throat games so she didn’t like it much but my brother, Deborah and I liked it. I think it’s a great game. It really requires you to think a lot. Lots of keeping tabs on what everyone else is doing in order to protect yourself while you plan to do your moves. Deborah won that game also.

The third game we were going to play was Tichu but my wife wasn’t feeling well so she had to sit out. Since we needed four people to play Tichu because it requires you to have two teams of two people, we decided to play China instead. China is a game where you collect points by putting villages and ambassadors in ancient Chinese provinces. It’s a very deep game for a game that seems so simple. It isn’t very cut throat and it’s very family friendly but like I said, it’s very deep. My brother didn’t like that you didn’t get tons of points quickly like in the board game Ticket to Ride. I don’t think he understood much of the depth in the game. Maybe if he plays it again he’ll understand it better. In any case, Deborah won that game also. We were all big losers that day. Deborah apparently is just as wiz at grasping board game strategies really quickly. Who knew.

CATHOLICISM

Happy Feast of all Saints.

So I went to Confession (a.k.a Sacrament of Reconciliation, Sacrament of penance) this week. I really don’t like going to Confession. Not because it’s such a horrible Sacrament or anything but because it forces me to own up to the bad things I’ve done. It bursts my “I’m a good person” bubble and shows me, I could do better. Everyone could do better. Mother Teresa of Calcutta went to Confession daily?…Weekly? I forgot, but she went often. I usually try to go once a month, just to keep my actions in check and to get the Grace for going to Confession. I’ve fallen way short of this. It had been about four months since I did it last and I felt it. For me, not going at least once a month is like not taking a shower for two or three weeks. It just makes me feel a bit grimy. Still, it took a huge effort for me to get off my butt and go. I just don’t like doing it. It hurts my pride. I’ve realized that the more prideful I am, the harder it is for me to go. The humbler I am, the easier (in theory. I haven’t had a easy time yet. I guess I’ve yet to be so humble). Of course, once it’s done and over with, it’s like the weight of the world lifts off me and I’m so full of joy I’m about ready to explode.

I once heard somewhere that Confession is like the direct opposite of sinning. When you sin, you tend to want to do it, you feel good doing it, and you feel bad after. Confession, on the other hand, you don’t want to do it, you feel bad doing it, and you feel awesome after. I’d much rather go to Confession.

PODCASTS
Speaking of Confession. Rosary Army has a great “That Catholic Show” episode on it. For those of you who don’t know what “That Catholic Show” is, it’s a little five minute or so, web video show explaining Catholicism in a very goofy and entertaining way. It’s a great show, check it out.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

So, finally we get someone responding to the “traditional” Catholics in the comments section. I’m going to quote the things he directly wrote to me about but if you want to see the rest of what he wrote, go to the comments section of What in the world is a “traditional Catholic”?. He wrote to me correcting me in some things. str1977 wrote:

Mel Gibson is affiliated with the “Society of Saint Peter”, a group that didn’t join the SSPX when the broke from Rome (or broke with them when broke from Rome).

The issue can never be about more or less dogmatic (unless it is liberally used as an insult). The SSPX complains that Vaticanum II and later developments has compromised earlier teachings. The anti-dogmatist is still dogmatic when he expounded that there shall be no dogma.

The SSPX by the way dispute that the events of 1988 constitute a schism and therefore claim to be loyal and subject to the Holy See. They certainly do not dispute that Benedict XVI is the Pope. Some traditionalists however do, either claiming that the Holy See is vacant or that someone else (usually the leader of their sect) is Pope.

Hi, str1977

Thank you for correcting me, I appreciate any feed back on things I write that may not be correct. Can you do me a favor and write down the source of your information about Mel Gibson belonging to the Fraternity of St. Peter? Obviously if I had done the same with my information I wouldn’t have made my mistake.

Also, forgive me if my “less or more dogmatic” comment seemed like an insult to you. I didn’t mean my statement as an insult. I have a tendency to exaggerate to get my points across quicker (maybe you’ve noticed this from looking at the cartoons on the site). In this case, I was using the cultural bias against the word dogma to make my point quickly. I know that perhaps there are a lot of people reading this blog that might view Catholics who are trying to be faithful to all the doctrines and dogmas of the Church in a negative light. Some of these people might perceive faithful Catholics as brainwashed intolerant hypocrites. And yet, what happens when you show them a group of people who think these same faithful Catholics are brainwashed, over tolerant, hippies? I just thought, perhaps incorrectly, that I might be able to present this information in words they might be able to grasp quickly, even though the statement would be inaccurate.

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