Leftovers Again

You like leftovers? Really? You know, you have to make something before you have leftovers. Or go over to your parents house and come home with some of theirs. Anyway, I was thinking about how to get rid of leftovers and still get to eat out occasionally.

Government Massage

The trick to completing today's comic strip was to find the twist at the end that could make a TSA pat-down into a semi-massage. I chose to go with placing some type of metal in strategic spots to imply they would do a double pat-down there. I then decided to use exercise gear to visually lead the reader into the punch line.

White Elephant

Why? What do you give when the invitation says "white elephant?" To quote Groucho Marx, "Of course, in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa."

Synchronized Lights

I got to wondering...what if someone changed stoplight synchronization to Christmas carols (you know, like people link up their houses). Just imagine what madness that would be.

Company Vision

On the radio last night, I heard some politician talking about needing to get a clear vision of what Congress needs to do about the Bush tax cuts. As I sure you would do, I immediately heard the word vision as seeing with our eyes and not about having a well-defined goal. So, where would that take us in a CoV? For me, this is what happened.

HDLC

I decided I wanted to try and do another work-themed CoV. So I started with looking for some way to apply the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief. As you can see, I got a little distracted, but I think everyone has called some type of help line before, so you know they take foreeeeever.

Who You Know

This morning, I was trying to think of a different way to present a letter to Santa. At first, I was looking for what a member of I.T. would write, but then I decided that a better direction would be about someone trying to get a response from I.T.

Purple Princess Dress

This is not quite verbatim from a conversation I had on Sunday, but it is very close. The main thing I wanted to remember was my saying "Which princess" and her response of "It's not a witch princess." Those are the memories that memories are made of. Well, you know what I mean.

Poor Acronym

Apparently, we do offer some type of Service Offering Bundle. I did not hear them erfer to it by its acronym, but that seems inevitable.

Productivity Up

I had a different comic planned for today, but I changed my mind on the drive in. I went to the Dr. yesterday and got some medicine. That led me to think about how some medications make people sleepy. Then that led me to think about what people might notice (or miss) if I were to fall asleep at work.

Good Hour

English has some interesting phrases that we all know and use, but I never remember being taught. One of them is to describe something as taking "a good hour." We know they mean it was a tiresome process, but that is not what the words could imply.

Yeah No

I was in a meeting yesterday and a guy answered a question starting with "Yeah, no ...." I know that is becoming an increasingly common phrase and felt it was time to address using this comic strip platform. Did I do it just? Yeah? No?

Preacher's Tie

My brother is a preacher and mentioned a new Christmas tie that he got that plays music. Sure, I have one, too. Still, if you imagine what could go wrong with that and when would be the worst time for a preacher....

Eyeglasses

This is not meant to imply that I am anti-TSA. I have a nephew that works for them. They just make such easy targets for silly jokes. So, today, I investigated what they might say about something as routine as glasses.

PMB

Of course, I think every company has its own TLA (Three Letter Acronyms) environment. Here is no different. Still, when I heard someone kiddingly calling the PMB (Project management Board) as PBJ, I knew this comic strip had to be shared.

CBGS

For some reason, all the Red vs. Blue rhetoric going on reminds me of a game show. So,what if that format was used in congressional debates?

Office Acoustics

Bathrooms, with their all tile walls and floors, echo sound immensely. And the other day, I heard a guy in a stall talking on the phone. I am assuming that the person on the other end probably did not know where he was. So, I felt that deserved the CoV treatment. And yes, I did think it was gross.

Lickyweeks

Of course, I had to have my input on this wikileaks.com stuff that is going on. Am I surprised by the info leaked. Not really. Could it threaten US interests and even lives? Possibly. Does it make good fodder for snarky comic strips? Definitely.

Eleven is Too High

For those of you that do not know much about the movie Spinal Tap, it is a mockumentary about the struggles of a rock group. Anyway, one of the classic quotes from it refers to the fact that one of their members has an amplifier that goes up to 11 (most only go up to 10).

Of course, the comic strip itself has obvious ties to the fear of radiation from backscatter machines.

Wild Turkey

This one started from looking for a comic idea around turkey. Sure, I could have gone the usual "I say turkey but I'm not talking about you" type of theme. However, once I thought of Wild Turkey, I challenged myself to create a cartoon around that confusion. I could not find another way to misspeak or misinterpret alcohol, so I had to misunderstand booze. And the dressing comment was originally "Will there be dressing? No, I'll probably sit around in my underwear." I had to look up the type of liquor it was and the alcohol percentage. I did know I wanted to end with the "100%" comment.

Gowns

A friend at work suggested that maybe we should just wear hospital gowns to the airport now. Of course, that became an obvious topic for CoV and I knew what the characters needed to say immediately.

Thanksgiving in January

All I knew when I came in was that I wanted to do a Thanksgiving-themed comic. So, I Googled "original thanksgiving" to find other dates when it has been held. However, once I started the strip, I decided it should really be held in January if you want to give thanks for presents. Of course, I used Mr. Green to champion for the real meaning of the season.

Ticket

A coworker suggested that I comment on the proliferation of work-tracking applications we have. Every team seems to have its own place to open tickets requesting their resources. I am sure you see this, too, at your workplace.

Badges

Another in the PM Auditor series, but I forgot to put the banner across the first two panels. As you can tell, I took the inspiration from Blazing Saddles.

Code in my Doze

It so happens I do have a cold in my nose. So, I used this as a vehicle to deliver the point of this comic, which was the idea of Faithbook. I toyed with removing the Faithbook reference and playing more with the faith vs face idea. Maybe mentioning wanting a faith healer and Mr. Green saying 'face healer"? In the end, I stayed with my original panels.

Vizzini, Project Auditor

This is another in the Project Auditor series. The problem with some people or movies is that their quotes are too familiar. It can be challenging to fit a quote into a different context. So, I knew I had to use INCONCEIVABLE. A couple of the other quotes were adapted from other characters in The Princess Bride (such as YOU KILLED MY .... PREPARE TO DIEt).

Diet Lunch

I really don't remember where the inspiration for this came from. I do know that I was up letting out the dog at 2:30am Saturday when I thought about it. So, I wrote myself a note so that I would not forget the idea. BTW, can you tell they are in a car?

Nervous About Audit

I think I heard someone on TV say "I get nervous when I'm not nervous." Maybe that crazy cheerleader on Glee? Anyway, I captured that phrase and wanted to build a cartoon around it. So, I decided to continue my audit theme and use it. Once I started, I knew it would need to show up earlier in the cartoon than the final panel. So, I used that famous idea of picturing your audience naked if you are nervous about a speech and tweak it slightly for my purposes.

Vet Auditor

I originally had a different cartoon idea in mind, but decided to make today's comic a vet-themed one. So, I stayed in the Project Auditor arena and used a stock photo to depict a veteran. Once I decided on a vet, I knew what I would do in the final panel. I built the cartoon backwards from the final panel.

Office Space Auditor

Are you reading this comic strip and you have never seen Office Space? That seems wrong somehow. It is a classic tale of the life of working for a large company and working in cubicles.

If this is true, then you will not know that the TPS report and a stapler are jokes repeated throughout the movie. I tried to make Mr. Green provide clever quips for you Non-Office-Space watchers, but even I can only do so much.

What Teachers Learned in Kindergarten

Teachers do hear all kinds of things that their parents never think anyone would find out about. Of course, they never share anything like that with each other. And then, teacher's spouses also hear much of the same stories.

DoWeDUIinAZ

Oddly enough, this idea came from trying to use the word braille as a starting point for a cartoon. I tried to replace the 'br' with something else, came up with jail, and then decided to use the idea of a book for surviving a DUI sentence in AZ.

Wary

I often noticed the misuse of words in conversations. Luckily, this cartoon strip offers me a way to comment on these misuses without having to correct anyone to their face. Let him that hath ears hear. Just don't be wary of my intentions.

Picasso Ancestor

I don't know why I decided to pick on Picasso today. I got up during the night to let the dog out and somehow, I wondered what a cave drawing would look like if Picasso created one. Then, as I created the cartoon today, I thought about what the rest of us think about those weird, disjointed paintings. This is the result.

Airplane! Doctor PM

The two Airplane! movies offer a huge amount of silly conversation ideas. Once I decided to write a series of strips about project documentation audits, how could I not include some dialog reminiscent to Airplane!? I did decide to include a little bit of Airplane! 2 in the final panel as a way to end the cartoon. I looked for a way to include some dialog like the "A hospital? What is it?" "A place with doctors and patients, but that's not important now", but it did not flow with today's CoV.

Voted Today

Actually, I did not vote today. I sent in my mail-in ballot last week. However, I did not want to call this incumbent or incompetent so that the reader would not see anything about the direction of the strip until they were reading it. Do I actually think incompetent and incumbent could mean the same thing? Sure, don't you?

I Quit

Thanks to a family member (who shall remain nameless) to whom this happened. My sister's daughter (who shall remain nameless, I said) had been talking to some students in her principals office. She went to leave and instead entered his closet. I am sure she was making some point to them and not momentarily confused.

Cool Hand Luke PM

Of course, the fifty 'X' comment takes off on Luke saying he can eat 50 eggs in the movie. Does he do it? You'll have to go back and watch it. This movie was chosen because of the 'failure to communicate' line. What better negative comment can be levied against a project manager?

I tried to find a way to have the PM say he felt like a 'new man' as a way to tie in Paul Newman's name, but it did not work. I did add in the phrase 'cool hand, Luke,' so that will have to do.

Ricky Ricardo PM

The trick with pointing your readers to your punch line is twofold. First, don't get them there too early. That has sometimes forced me to change what the final punchline was. Second, they need to buy into the premise. So, for Ricky Ricardo, I needed at least one phrase that was uniquely his. I knew I wanted either "Lucy, I'm home" or "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do." Once I found the phrases, I had to either name a specific character (which I do not like to do) or use something that sounded like the name. Then, when I thought of loose-y, I knew what my final panel would be. Then, I established that Ricky was in "show business" and added the final "Waaah" of Lucy Ricardo.

Dirty Harry PM

Today's strip build on the famous name PM series I started last week. I had to look up some quotes to add verisimilitude (good word, huh?) to the cartoon. In the final panel, I decided to mention documents instead of bullets for the quote to be closer to the original. I also adjusted the cartoon so that I used characters of different colors than my normal Mr. Blue and Mr. Green.

Sick Acronyms

If you came here looking for acronyms that are sick, you are in the wrong place. Since I was out of the office yesterday, I decided to write a cartoon about being sick. So, Mr. Blue needed to be the one who misinterpreted Mr. Green's comments as a series of acronyms for being sick.

Obi Wan PM

I was trying to come up with some new ideas this morning for Clarity of Vision. This one came to me as I considered what could be funny about the project reviews we are performing now. What if we could wave away the auditor using the Force? So, the trick Obi Wan pulled on Alderaan would be very useful. That led to a few more ideas from other movies that will be coming up soon.

Reading on Vacation

There's a guy at work that told me his weekly status report was Science Fiction at its best. That led to this once I figured out how to expand the idea to four panels. I decided to link what they read to what they write.

Relish

Let's take a look at the creation process for today's cartoon. My original note says "eat something with relish. a banana split with relish sounds horrible." OK, so I knew that I wanted to play with the word relish and compare/contrast between its meanings. However, the concept did not feel right for a four panel strip. So, since I do have a birthday party on Saturday, I decided to use that theme for my wordplay. I also wanted to be sure everyone knew what the definitions were, so I added an explanation in panel four. Once I did that, I knew Mr. Blue would say "relish relish." That led to Mr. Green's common sorry-I-mentioned-this type final response.

And that's how I get to my completed concept.

Fall Phrases

For some reason, when I was deciding what today's CoV would cover, I got stuck on trying to use the word FALL in as many ways as I could. When the words did not fall as I had hoped, I added a misinterpretation of the letters BFF to fill the frames.

Terrain

Thanks to Dad for saying terrain during our vacation. And yes, it is beautiful up there.

Altercation

I was driving home last night when someone used the word 'altercation' on the radio. My mind took off on the first syllable and that's where this came from.

Homemade Cards

Today's cartoon is courtesy of my oldest granddaughter. I did not even have to write anything.

Bad Storm

A crazy storm blew through last night. In addition to finishing off our lemon tree, it carried a lot of noise that spooked our dog. The bed did feel like one of those old-fashioned Magic fingers beds. You know, where you put in a quarter and it shakes for a while? Anyway, I knew immediately that the storm would be a good topic for today's cartoon.

New HR System Live

Our new HR system based on Peoplesoft goes live today. I don't know what will change as a result, but I am hoping it is not quite as drastic as today's cartoon. When I started writing it this morning, all I knew was that I wanted it to be about the HR system. Then, I decided to have the system make someone prove they were themselves and how that could be impossible. The final panel was written and I had to go back and adjust the others to fit the new scenario.