Starting off the new year with some really ambitious resolutions…

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And here we are. A new year upon us. Seems like only yesterday I was writing my new year’s post for 2013. Which reminds me, I think I made some resolutions last year. Oh shoot. We should probably go back and take a look at those. Alright. Let’s review last year’s goals and see how we did…

1. Do more sleeping at regular sleeping hours of the day. Do less sleeping and non-regular sleeping hours of the day.

Hey! I totally did that last year! Alright!! Maybe this whole resolution thing won’t be so bad. How many did I make last year? SEVEN?? I made SEVEN?!?! Oh great… 1/1

2. Eat some vegetables.

Hmm…you know what?? If we count v8 Fusion juice, I TOTALLY nailed that resolution. And you know I’m counting it. Boom. 2 for 2. Throw me your best shot resolutions. 2/2

3. Go outside.

Heck yes!! I’ve been outside like…lots of times last year. I played two softball leagues, two ice hockey leagues, did some running, lifted weights outside, ran around with students at the school I work at, and took not one but TWO trips to the mountains. How about that. Who knew these resolution things could actually work?? 3/3

4. Read more good stuff. Cut off tv shows that I don’t like anyway.

I read some good stuff this year. And I was more selective about my tv shows. It led to greater productivity. Gosh…I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting this. 4/4

5. Finish my screenplay.

This is something I am really proud of. Just before 2am on June 5th of last year, I completed my screenplay. It was an awesome feeling. I’ll need to make some revisions of course, but it was finished. That was a big thing that had been sitting on my to-do list for a number of years. Go team. If you’re a fancy producer that wants to become rich with me from producing my super awesome screenplay, drop me an email. FADE TO BLACK. 5/5

6. Make more animated Raccoon Toons.

I just managed to squeak in 4 animated/live action cartoon episodes before the end of the year, including the one from yesterday. Not bad. I have 3 more that I’m already working on now. So we’re moving in the right direction. They have been fun to make, and surprisingly nowhere near as time consuming as I initially thought. This bodes well for the creation of more. MORE! 6/6

7. Increase the number of visitors to this website.

Ahh… So…yeah… A funny thing happened this year. Website hits were actually down. Not a lot down, but definitely lower than 2012 and 2011 levels. Now, this is assuredly because I really didn’t do a lot of paid advertising in 2013 compared to previous years. And by “really didn’t do a lot” I really mean “almost none unless it was virtually free of charge.” So. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the website didn’t reach as many hits as it did during years when I spent a little more money. On the other hand, the facebook page for Raccoon Toons gained over 200 fans this year. So we must be doing something right. Still we have room for improvement. I’m giving us 1/2 of a completion on this one. 6.5/7

That’s not bad. That’s not bad at all folks. Thanks for holding me accountable.

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Ah, the new years resolution. That happy moment where we all collectively look at all of our failings and fool ourselves into believing that this year will be the year we get our acts together. THIS year will be different. THIS year I’ll get that fancy job. THIS year I’ll find true love. THIS year I’ll get in shape. THIS year I won’t set fire to any public buildings. You get the idea.

But then the year goes by and we’re right back where we started. A year older, a year fatter, a few public buildings scorched to the ground, and no resolved resolutions. So you know what? This year I’m not making any resolutions. I refuse to subject myself to further failure a year from now. I know what my goals are. I don’t need to make special reference to them simply because we flipped over the calendar. Take THAT New Years, you sorry excuse for a holiday! Ah HA!! I’ll be keeping my self esteem next year thank you very much.

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Ok, I broke the 4th wall. I’m sorry. But I had good reason.

When I was a kid I read possibly every book there is to read about Walt Disney. Once in jr. high school, I even chose Walt Disney for my autobiography book report. The book, was in fact, not an autobiography, and I didn’t actually read it because I forgot about the assignment and the in-class essay until the night before. I ended up just writing the essay using only the knowledge I’d acquired about Walt Disney over the years without ever actually having read this particular autobiography…which again, wasn’t really an autobiography at all. Where I was required to use quotations I quoted or paraphrased actual quotes that I had previously committed to memory.

When all was said and done, I earned a “B+” on this paper on a book that was not only invalid for the assignment, but also one that I had never actually read. It was ironically, the highest grade I ever received from that particular English teacher, who for some inexplicable reason, just really hated my guts.

But I digress. My point is, I have always really loved and admired Walt Disney. In the 4th grade I did a report on him and dressed up in a suit and fake mustache. My report included posters with drawings of Mickey Mouse that I had made to illustrate the difference between how he looked in the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1928 (which by the way was Plane Crazy, and NOT Steamboat Willie thank you very much).

I think I let the fake mustache get to me, because it wasn’t long afterwards that I decided I really wanted to BE Walt Disney. That was my dream. I had great ambitions as a 4th grader. It was shortly after this that I created my very own cartoon characters. You know them here, as Michael and Wendy Raccoon.

It was my plan to do as Walt did, and create animated cartoons that surely the world would embrace as they did Mickey. Shortly thereafter, I would branch my newfound and lucrative stardom into my own animation studio just as Disney did. Then I would continue to build until my work was all over the movies and TV stations on Saturday mornings (because back then all the good cartoons were on Saturday mornings). Then, to complete my raging success, I would build my own theme park somewhere in California. There my raccoon characters would greet all of their adoring fans that would come from all over the world just to see them.

Somewhere along the lines I grew up a little, and realized that no one would ever repeat the talent, the entrepreneurship, and the lucky timing with technology to equal Walt Disney. So naturally I decided that I would just have to get Disney to distribute my cartoons, so that my characters could greet their adoring fans at Disneyland. It all seemed like a good plan.

And so here today, I have this little comic strip. The dream of a 10 year old boy. Forgive me if indulge him ever so slightly. The truth is, the older I get, the more I think I had it right in the 4th grade.

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I used to work in an after school program at an elementary school and every year we would create a “haunted house” at our site. We also put a lot of hard work and effort into it. But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t also trying to scare the snot out of everyone who entered. Every year it got bigger and bigger and more and more frightening. It was no secret that we fully expected kids to cry after entering our haunted house. Our center was adjacent to the school itself, and every year the school did a haunted house of their own. I’m pleased to say that every year, the line outside of our haunted house always exceeded that of the school. And not only did we scare the snot out of a lot of elementary school students, but we also scared the snot out of a lot of their parents too.

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I had this friend once, who called me up one day to tell me that she had a bunch of protein powder she didn’t want anymore. She wondered if I wanted it. Of course I wanted it I explained, but I wondered why she didn’t.

“I don’t think it’s working for me,” she explained.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m still the same weight.” she replied. “In fact, I think it has actually made me gain weight.”

“Well, have you been exercising?” I questioned.

“No,” she said.

“Have you been cutting your calories from the rest of your diet?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“So basically” I surmised, “you’ve just been adding an additional 200-400 calories a day to your diet without any other changes in your exercise, your eating, or your lifestyle, and you’ve been expecting these additional calories to somehow magically make you lose weight?” I got a sort of blank stare in response, before she finally responded.

“Do you want the protein or not?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

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For the record, I have totally beat Super Mario Bros. in under 15 min, using only 1 life. Yup. I have witnesses. It might be one of my proudest accomplishments in life. And that’s really sad.

Just a little late getting this one up today on account of a massive motherboard fail. Not cool.

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Seriously. Apartments in the bay area are so ridiculously expensive. $1000 a month for a studio apt?! Sweet! That’s a total steal around here! It’s lame. I don’t like it. I think we should do it like they do on the island of Yap, where everyone is given a plot of land the moment they’re born. That’d be awesome. Unless I was given something in the East Bay…

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