I haven’t seen Cars 2 yet, but I have to. Not in the omigod I have to see it way, but in the I have to shoot Ol’ Yeller in the head because he has rabies way. I’ve gone this far with Pixar.

It came out about four days ago, which is just enough time for me to cycle through the five stages of grief. It’s currently low 30’s on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes. That’s bad. Mr. Poppers Penguins got 47%.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

That being said, as admirable as they were to go back to their weakest franchise, there are fundamental problems with the premise. Most are obvious, but the one really gets me, and one that no one ever seems to mention, is that the Car society is a rigid caste system of genetic determinism.

Does anyone realize that that cute, French tire-changer car is inescapably bound to a life of mundane, obscure servitude? Does this bother anyone else?

Sorry, schoolbus. You’ll never be anything more than a hapless vessel for other cars. Children of wealthy sportscars, licking your windows, scratching cuss words into your seats. Not that you need an education.

Not that it matters anyway. See, in the real world, certain factions can gain the upper-hand with weapons. In Cars world, certain factions are the weapons.

That attractive Lamborghini convertible may be a shrewd in business, but that M1 Abrams has a damn cannon for a head.

Of course, Cars 2 is better than Popper’s Penguins. I haven’t seen either movie and I know this. I bet if Dreamworks or any other studio was responsible for the franchise, it would have scored in the 70’s. Pixar is at a bit of a disadvantage when every one of its other franchises are, like, masterpieces.

People used to talk about the first Cars as Pixar’s “one bad movie.” They would talk about how much they adored every Pixar movie except Cars, and then throw the word “bad” around. Somehow “bad” came out of “not astoundingly good.” Cars wasn’t bad, folks. It just wasn’t a friking masterpiece.

Edit: Just saw the movie. I’m…gonna need to recover from that.

I don’t have may readers, but I like it when people comment. Though I don’t know why you need to use an internet alias. I know you know me, but I don’t know who you are. I spend a lot of time guessing. It’s weird.

I know Birddog is Kevin because I gave him that name. I’m pretty sure minidray215 is Devan Ray. Really, Devan? I have six regulars and just “minidray” was taken?

Kid Galahad? Is that you, Chris?

Do you people just expect me to know who you are?

Two weekends ago was Gay Pride Fest here in Denver. I didn’t say anything about it then because I was still put out about breaking Kevin’s tablet pen and not being able to drawr. I didn’t even feel like trying with this comic, as topical as it was. Maybe I could have at least made it legible.

It was surprisingly slow for me, but maybe that was because I looked too straight, which wasn’t a problem for some of the other pedicabers. By 5pm one of the ringleaders sent out a message reminding everyone that shirt, shoes, and pants must be worn, lest we would be sent home. Now I’m not gay, but most of the gay folks I know aren’t nursing pathological Tarzan complexes.

At least, I don’t think so…

No matter. The straight pedicabers wanted the gay customers, and the straight customers wanted the gay pedicabers. No real gay people required.

In fact, fighting for the cause seemed to be more straight, white girls from suburban backgrounds than real live homosexuals.

Sorry gals, I know gay subculture is fashionable, and I know you’ve been dying for an excuse to wear that rainbow thong, but “homosexual” isn’t synonymous with “prostitute.”

As much as Gay Pride rallies want you to think it is.

Transcript:
KEVIN “You broke my stylus? How could you??”
JARED “Do you even read my blog? How didn’t you see this coming?”

I guess it’s back to good ol’ fashioned dry media for the time being.

Actually, does Sharpie count as dry media?

It’s been a few days, my loyal handful! Take comfort in two things: First, Spartacus started his revolution with but a handful. Second, Spartacus would mysteriously disappear in his tent for…what has it been? A week?

Trouble was, I broke Kevin’s tablet pen. You remember Kevin’s tablet pen? Well, I broke it. The tip mysteriously stopped working. The eraser side works, but I that doesn’t do me much good in Photoshop.

Oh, and if you’re Kevin, I broke your tablet pen. Sorry about that. But really, what did you expect?

I couldn’t draw any cartoons on my computer. I tried to draw a few on paper, but I thought about scanning them in and then I got distracted and forgot what I was doing.

Unfortunately in the last week I think I lost 100% of my fan base, which was 10. Brave souls, all. Actually, maybe I didn’t. Let me check on Google Analytics…

Yep.

Shut up, Sparty, you’re drunk.

Actually, I got something pretty good with just words, but I wont say it now so that a new visitor won’t have to slog through all this stuff.

I saw X-Men: First Class yesterday. It was one of those movies that I wouldn’t have seen unless the reviews were real good. I didn’t see Wolverine, like other super hero franchises, X-Men universe began at science fiction and has been slowly moving toward straight-up magic.

Genetic mutation, space radiation, and green serum will go a long way with me. They’ll get me to an eight-armed, nuclear powered octopus cyborg. They’ll get me to a man who can control fish with his brain.

But a woman made of solid diamond? I mean…how does she move?

I can give it a good injection of suspended disbelief as long as they have a reason for making her out of diamond. But there wasn’t one.

Say no more, I understand. The writers had no choice but to have her be pure carbon.

Sure, Mystique is cool, but why go to the trouble to bring her back 40 years if her only function is to be a walking identity crisis? Couldn’t another mutant have taken care of that? How about the red devil dude? Now he’s creepay!

But whatever, she’s blue and its neat. Defending the science of these things takes more rhetorical gymnastics than defending the quality of the Star Wars prequels.

(I’ve heard people do it. It fills me with pity.)

It’s the themes that matter, and my real trouble comes when I try to sympathize with tortured characters whose main source of agony is that they have friking superpowers.

And movies set in the Cold War are always an educational experience.

In pedicabery, there are two important things about Saturdays.

First, one Saturday hour is worth something like 2.5 ordinary hours.

Second, because I work whenever I want, I have this feeling that any moment not on the cab means a direct loss in profit. You could see pedicabing as having no set shift, or you could see it as having a shift that goes on all the time. So when this happens…

It usually plays out like this…



Therefore, I must work Saturday until every soul has gone from Downtown. I had a sore throat, I was dehydrated, and a street burrito threatened to give an encore, but I couldn’t quit. It would be like lighting $50 bills on fire.

And nobody wants that.

But I still had Church at 9am. And what kind of a person would I be were I to sleep through Church because I was up helping drunken philistines to their debaucherous ends?

Unfortunately, when I need to get up for something specific, my brain does something strange. It takes a harmless suggestion, like, maybe I’ll get up to go to Church, but with nothing else to do, turns this small idea over and over all night long…

It was incepted.

By 8:30am, I was no longer a man, but some kind of Church-going automaton.

In fact, I shouldn’t have gone at all, for I developed some kind of sickness in the night. With the virus, low sleep, and a night of pushing my body to its drunk-hauling threshold, I really should have stayed in bed.

But I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand anything. My powers of reason were no more. An avid sleepwalker, I honestly think I may have been sleeping when I got out of bed.

I achieved semi-awareness in the bathroom, but the light was bright, so I closed my eyes…

…and then dozed off for about three minutes.



I awoke in a lingering delirium. But of course, I had to fulfill the purpose that my mind had spent all night incepting. It was a consciousness composed of a single idea: go to Church. So I shambled to the car, though I really shouldn’t have been driving.

I found the classical station especially profound.

.

And the jazz station was no help.




.

Certain things were very upsetting…



…and led to some troubling revelations.




.

Of course, I had no conception of a route, and just wandered in circles that sort of drifted outward in an easterly direction.





.

Turned out the service actually started at nine thirty. At least they had a coffee machine.

Now I’m gonna sleep.

Facebook wall post from Tessa.

“No blog today, eh? Isn’t “Jared’s Daily Green” a bit deceptive then?”

And then

“Oh, sorry, it’s not Jared’s Daily Green, it’s “Jareds Daily Green.” You don’t even know how to possess something properly. I guess I can’t blame you for the failure’s of that blog then, though, seeing as it doesn’t really belong to you…eh?”

Well you know what? The day isn’t over. The day’s only over when you go to sleep or see the sun.

So go suck a lemon, Tessa.

Almost made me want to become a member.

Almost.

Apparently some of you have misunderstood the last image. That was probably due to the poor quality of Birddog’s photo. Here’s a higher resolution version.