June 14, 2004 : I've said it before -- if you're trying to figure out what Stephen Harper reminds you of, he's a Blue Meanie from the movie Yellow Submarine. See for yourself (hold down the Shift key while clicking to open the pages in new windows for easier comparison) :
June 5, 2004 : FINALLY ! Like they say, only the good die young ...
What, nobody else saw the meteor last Wednesday night / Thursday morning ? I was stumbling home along Broadway at 2:40 AM (I checked my watch) from my favourite watering hole when there was a flash of light. I thought, "Who's takin' pictures ?" I looked up to the south, just in time to see a brilliant orange-yellow streak on its way down. "Cool ! A meteorite !" I looked around to see if anybody else had seen it, but there was nobody there. Because it was 2:40 AM and the only other people around were drunks, and they were all watching the ground so they wouldn't fall. There's a metaphor or some sort of lesson there, I'm sure.
You want my WHAT to listen to your music ??!!! I only have one finger for the RIAA, but it's just for show.
May 11, 2004 : It would appear that McDonald's has trademarked the phrase, "I am Asian". I am now thinking of trademarking the phrase, "I am pissed off beyond all belief."
May 7, 2004 : Vive le Canada ! "Lockheed-Martin, the world's #1 weapons giant, is working on the next Canadian Census. Your tax dollars, and maybe personal info, will go to a non-Canadian corporation that makes landmines, nuclear bombs, and Star Wars missile-defense parts -- weapons Canadians have rejected, with good reason, for decades. And because Lock-Mart is American, George W. Bush might be able to secretly seize Canada's Census data using the US Patriot Act." You don't want that, do you ? Use their handy form to send a protest e-mail now. Especially if, like me, you're more afraid of Americans than terrorists ...
Case in point. You may find it surprising that half of the soldiers involved were women. I, however, once dated an army brat and former cadet, and am not surprised at all.
Awesome handmade Pelorian Cat bag for sale on ebay. Somebody buy it for me. I have a birthday coming up, probably sometime within the next year.
April 16, 2004 : I will now update with the intensity of a thousand suns. Five hundred suns. Okay, one-fifty. I'm bargaining already, that's a bad sign ...
For those of you that still haven't seen it, here's the weird link currently making the usual internet rounds : subservientchicken
"Dear Brad, My name is AJ and webmaster of *****.com
(Adult movies), I was wondering if you'd want
to become a reseller for *****.com and put a link on http://members.shaw.ca/stayasyouare/tohwpmt.html
You earn 65% net from every sign-up you generate and 65% of the
recurring from then on, for as long as the customer stays a member.
We have real time stats, you can see from day to day or over
a period how much money you are earning 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week. You get paid once a week by ****. If you are interested
then you can signup with our ***** webmaster program at http://www.***.com/signup.html
and start sending customers! Thank you very much for your time!"
Yes, it's finally starting to happen ! Cartoonist to screenwriter
to internet pornography advertiser ! I am surely living the dream.
(Note : refer to self as "weblord" from now on.)
Giant robot made from car. The Car Stopping test is particularly impressive. If it is, indeed, for real. If so, then I am very scared and expect to be killed by one eventually.
I remember being in a toy store a few years ago and there was a woman there with her son named Brad. And she kept saying all the things I used to hear when I was a kid and my mom took me to toy stores and wouldn't buy me everything. "No, Brad. They're too expensive, Brad. You have toys at home, Brad. Come on, we have to get going, Brad." Until I had a little breakdown and had to leave. At least now, I understand the concept of not having enough money. Oh, but I do still try to get them all ...
In movie business news : I received an e-mail from a guy named John who works at a production company in L.A. called Appian Way. He's a fan of the strip and saw on this webpage that I have a movie script and asked to read it ! I sent it off and he read it right away. (Do I need to tell you how much of a hurdle that usually is ? A blind submission will get thrown on a pile that the intern goes through if he or she has time between fetching coffees and only if he or she feels like it.) He then e-mailed me back and said that while he really liked it, it wasn't suitable movie material (for them, anyway) and was more of a play. However, he would like to read everything I write from now on ! So that's what I'm doing -- I'm going to produce the original script as a play and try to come up with something suitable for the L.A. production company. Follow the link for more information on Appian Way.
Sure, you'll be a rich man, but all your friends will stop coming over. Ever read "A Christmas Carol" ? Is it worth it ?
Back when I started doing zines, there was a bookstore I hated on Commercial Drive that had an employee there and I swear, I could not tell if it was male or female. I should have just gotten a sample of its writing. And waited 10 years.
Feb. 21, 2004 : Ricepaper Magazine is hosting a fundraiser event at the Crush Champagne Lounge (1180 Granville St.) on March 4, 2004 from 7-11 PM. Tickets are $10, with a free drink. Reservations : e-mail ricepaper@telus.net. Ricepaper is a national literary and arts magazine committed to providing diverse perspectives on contemporary Canadian identity and culture. Ricepaper’s primary emphasis is on the creative work produced by emerging and accomplished Asian-Pacific Canadians. The magazine showcases quality work by writers, artists, performers, filmmakers and cultural producers of Hapa, Asian-Pacific and Southeast Asian descent.
It's bad enough that I get over 150 spam a day, with various virus attachments and who knows what malicious links inside, and all those Nigerian scam letters and fake ebay notifications trying to get my credit card information, but now I'm getting religious spam ! No links, no attempt to get my money -- just e-mails urging me to save myself. Here's one : "Tomorrow is promised to nobody. Get God in your life today do not put this off. Call a prayer line or contact a local church today, You will be glad you did when you are in heaven, you will certainly regret it if you end up in hell." Still, it beats having them knocking on my door ...
Another, much better e-mail : "I just read most of your Porn titles page and I was laughing so hard at the titles and responses that I was convulsing uncontrollably and weeping. It was probably the closest I've come to multiple orgasms. Phew. Thank you, Jen in NYC " I have so many smarmy comments running through my head right now, I can't pick just one.
"How are you ? I recently saw a porn movie that had all the girls wearing eye glasses. The title was something like girl in spectacles or something like that. It was fairly low budget not made by any of the big porn producers. I actually saw it on the hot zone or the hot net. There was a chick who I thought was kind of hot and I’d like to see it again. Hopefully you can help me with the title. Thanks. If it helps it was on one of those channels about 2 weeks ago. Much Thanks, Greg." Okay, don't you all start writing because you think I can help you track down that porn movie you saw once and would like to see again but you can't remember the name and if it helps there was a really cute brunette in it that had a little rose tattoo on her thigh, but I was actually able to help this guy. I remembered the title from when I was researching the list because I've also got a thing for girls who wear glasses. It's called "Specs Appeal", and there are at least 14 different volumes. Thankfully, "specs" refers to "spectacles", and not "speculums". If it had, then it might have made the list.
"Hey Brad ! I tried to check out your web page from work, and the web filtering program stopped it due to 'tasteless' content !! haha !! how did it know ? -your favourite archnemesis, damian." See above.
Feb. 14, 2004 : Part of the reason I haven't been updating as much as I used to is because I can't tell you anything about my new screenwriting career. I'm not the gossipy type to begin with (talking about myself is not gossip !) and some of the people I'm working with read this page, or could easily stumble upon it. Until I get a better handle on this weird industry, I think it's best not to take any chances on upsetting anybody by posting potentially sensitive information here for all to see. However, if you run into me in person, I'll totally dish since I can deny I said anything later ... (And no, I won't do it by e-mail.)
If you happen to be in Singapore, drop by the Singapore Management University and pick up a course pack for their School Of Business' Organizational Communication (COMM002) class for Term 2, Academic Year 2003-2004, if only to verify that one of my cartoons has indeed been reproduced within, and that I am not full of crap.
Jan.31, 2004 : Some of my work will be on display at the (self)Publish or Perish exhibition, along with "over 130 national and international artists, graphics outlaws, and fanatic zinesters." Curated by Jo Cook, the show runs from February 6 to March 7 at the Open Space Arts Society at 510 Fort Street in Victoria, BC.
I sat on the couch to kill a few minutes watching TV when my cat came over and lay down on my lap to sleep. He's not exactly the most cuddly animal in the world, so I figured I'd better take advantage of his temporary lapse in nastiness and stay where I was. Unfortunately, there was very little to watch on TV during that particular half-hour block, so that's how I ended up watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" on NowTV, the local religious station. It's pretty much your standard sitcom fare, but then the father, played by Peter Boyle, says something along the lines of, "How the hell should I know ?" Only, because it's the religious station, they blank out the word "hell". So now, listening to it, in my mind he just said, "How the fuck should I know ?" Which is, of course, the exact opposite effect to the station's intention. Then the show's over, and these two people come on and start analyzing it as if it were some Sunday school lesson. They discuss how Ray's wife should have listened to him and his concerns, and how important communication is, and how he turned out to be right in the end, and how he is the man of the family and she should defer to his judgment, etc. And I'm sitting there, wondering if I've suddenly slipped into some parallel universe that's just like the 1950's, except you can swear on network TV and my cat is actually cuddly.
Jan. 19, 2004 : The worst part is, I'm not even busy these days. I've just fallen out of the habit of updating the website ...
First off, no more opening links in a new window. If you want to do that, hold down the Shift key when you click. Here, try it out on this. I'll change some of the other pages to this new format, but not everything.
New e-mail instructions : I get over 150 spam e-mails a day now. It's gotten so bad, I delete most of them without even opening them. This is a problem because I might be deleting legitimate e-mails in the process. To prevent me from thinking your e-mail is spam, you should avoid using blank headers, misspelled words, odd word combinations, a single word with a question mark at the end, garbage text, strange symbols or any of the following words or phrases :
"Hi, hey, hello, howdy, hiya, check this out, re:, ebay, profits, prescription drugs, medication, meds, Cialis, Viagra, Valium, blind date, pills, women, men, penis, inches, urgent, important, stock market, finance, refinance, gas prices, Norton Antivirus, casino, adult, video, photos, sex, porn, Paris Hilton, patch, spam, mortgage, colon, debt, weight, movie stars, celebrities, insurance, cash, opinion, survey, government, inkjet, cable, hot, save, remote control, farm animals, affordable, purchase, harder, longer, thicker, size, girl next door, last all night, last all weekend, pump, hair, my friends thought I'd die, diploma, security, internet, online, reverse, rates, loan, free."
It's like some sort of freeform poem or something ... "bradyung" and "stayasyouare" will also get you ignored because there are no spaces. "Stay As You Are", "SAYA" or "Hey Brad" will catch my attention right away and I won't miss your e-mail, as will "porn titles" or "Pelorian Cats".
In movie news, I am no longer working with Reg on the second script. We've decided that it's too difficult to maintain a working relationship with him in Toronto and me here in Vancouver. (I'm sure glad I goofed off over the winter holidays instead of writing the thing !) We also didn't connect in terms of subject material or artistic vision. We're still on good terms -- if I write something else, I can send it to him and he'll pass it around to other people if he doesn't like it. In the meantime, I'm developing the first script with my new producer team and starting work on my third script with Kyle Hawke, my editor. I tell him certain lines or describe scenes and he busts out laughing, so that's a good sign. It's a comedy about cancer, just to get you all upset now before you even see the trailer ...
Here are the last two Non-Sequitur Theatre strips that were published in Geist Magazine, but never made it into a SAYA issue : Non-Sequitur Theatre #24 and Non-Sequitur Theatre #25. I also updated the NST Easter Eggs page.
This Pelorian Cat-like photo is funny, unless you read the accompanying text.
I will update the page with more weird links and stuff again soon. I hope.
This webpage is optimized for a screen resolution of 800 x 600. That means I put it together with very little regard for other resolutions. I am so inconsiderate.
I can't believe people have visited this page!
They must like the free counter by www.digits.com !
All contents of this website (except some of the sound clips) © 2002 by Brad Yung. Like somebody else would take responsibility for this ...