Chewie & Han

Oh, hello. Didn't see you there.

This is "Chewie & Han" by Chris Wahl. I saw it and immediately bought it due to it combining two beloved duos of characters from my mental development. Seems to be a theme with me.

Speaking of Calvin and Hobbes, I saw a tweet from Brian Lynch (@BrianLynch) that got me thinking:

I replied, of course, with a few witticisms that he dutifully did not reply to, such as "I am Spaceman Spiff's Smirking Revenge" and "'Calvin you look like you've been pounced!' 'You fell down some stairs.' 'I fell down some stairs.'"

I've since come up with more:

"The first rule of G.R.O.S.S. is you do not talk about G.R.O.S.S.. The second rule of G.R.O.S.S. is YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT G.R.O.S.S.! Third rules: two guys per treehouse."

"I know this, because Hobbes knows this."

"Yes, these bruises are from being Calvinball. No, I don't want to talk about it."

I then started thinking that I needed images to caption with these comments. So I started looking (I also found this lovely essay comparing Fight Club & Calvin & Hobbes. Check it out).

What started as me changing lines to suit the new setting in a humourous way quickly became me using images from the new setting to extoll the ideas of the original work.

In short, it went from funny and interesting to depressing and self-destructive. Rather like my experience watching/reading Fight Club.

When I saw Fight Club, I was 19. I was initially intrigued by it's punk aesthetic and rebellious nature and the absurdist way the Narrator cut himself off from society. Then the depressing part set in. "Let's burn it all down." the film decried "Everything you ever thought sucks, you're stupid for thinking it, and you'll never be anything!" Or at least that was how my 19-year-old self heard it. Watching it again (and reading the book) at 29, I was happily a bit more detached. I had read more, I had done more, I was in a very different place in my life. I had learned to appreciate things without assimilating their ideas (a tactic I now employ due to my not needing popular culture to tell me who I am and what I think).

So here are the pictures. Watch the progression! Get some popcorn!

And then the change happens.

So yes. Got depressing. I actually stopped myself before it got any further. And this has nothing to do with the fact that I got rejected on the most promising job interview I've had in a while after they strung me along for weeks and got ID and did reference checks and made out like I had the job. Nothing at all. I'm totally not disheartened by the job-seeking process, and not at all horribly worried about my and Tanja's financial state. In no way am I curtailing all happy impulses, saying that I should be serious and buckling down due to the impending badness. Nope. ....and if you believe that, I have a used Death Star to sell you.