Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 10, 2009
Click here for a larger (and possibly readable) version.

Every once in a while I’ll see my boy Atticus stomping away from the computer in our living room. In years past, this was a pretty good indication that either the CD game he was playing wasn’t working right (and typically due to the scratches, boogers, and finger prints on the playing side from improper storage and handling), or he had lost the game. The second eventuality was highly improbable because he always played the lowest levels — especially in Backyard Sports — so he could win, say, hockey games 47 to 0.  I would point out that he should perhaps consider a higher level, but he’d very logically tell me that it was just as much of a challenge to see if he could make it 48 to 0 the next time. What he was actually telling me of course was, “buzz off, old man.”

Anyway, these days if he’s stomping off, chances are he has just read the comments under a posting of something he likes. For example, on YouTube one can view a Weird Al video (or a Weird Al tribute video or a Lego version of the tribute, and so on) and then scroll down to see what other users had to say about it. The problem is that my boy is a sensitive kid who assumes that the people posting these comments are decent folks with actual opinions. They are not. And it doesn’t take long to find something nasty or witless or tangential or incomprehensible or needlessly confrontational. It’s usually the last kind get him.

So I give him this advice, advice — in case you think me some sort of Luddite who simply doesn’t get this Internet communication thing — also dispensed to him by his two teenage sisters: Never read the comments. Never. Ever. DO… NOT… SEEK… THE COMMENTS! No possible good can come from them. Except maybe inspiration for an editorial cartoon. Maybe.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 3, 2009

Busy working my small business hiney off this morning; check out this Free Press article for the backstory on the comic….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 27, 2009

Steelcase was to office furniture manufacturing what GM was to automobile manufacturing. (Not entirely accurate but certainly close enough for a blog post.) The point being, Steelcase was once the big-dog, safe, secure, well-paying employer in its world. In the salad days of 1989, it built an innovative, seven story pyramid as its new Corporate Development Center. Twenty years later, it’s closing the building and consolidating the workers in a rather bland corporate structure. So it goes. Here’s hoping it can be reused and not become a relic of an ancient time. (I hear it has got some really nice office furniture!)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, July 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 20, 2009

This went along with an article on the despite-the-odds success of certain Michigan-made products. I wouldn’t be offended if this ode to Hudsonville Ice Cream were rewarded with a free pint of Deer Traxx. Alas, I have yet to be contacted. (Maybe I should have gone with an ode to Michigan blueberries….)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 13, 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, July 6, 2009

’nuff said

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 29, 2009

For those who notice the resemblance — no, my father-in-law who put in 40+ years at GM has not in fact taken a job as a security guard. Yet, anyway…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, June 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, June 22, 2009

For the record (for those who actually read any distance into the comic’s dense copy), I adore black licorice. Good & Plenties are the best. (Sing along with me! — “Charlie says, love my Good and Plenties. Charlie says, really rings a bell. Charlie says, love my Good and Plenties. Don’t know any other candy that I love so well.) Ah, I can just feel the black ooze at the corners of my mouth building up a nice crust that I can enjoy later again and again….

And by the way, all you posers out there who claim to love licorice but not black licorice — I have nothing but contempt for you. Red, blue, even chocolate flavors are abominations. Tis sacrilege to even consider them licorice simply because of their twisted, strandy shape. Woe! Woe unto you, blasphemous Twizzlerites. You shall pay dearly for your transgressions! An eternal hellfire of off-brand and misnamed confections! Repent and embrace the one true licorice!!!