A bit of schedule news first: I’m finally gonna officially bump my update day to WEDNESDAY, instead of Tuesday, like I should’ve done a long time ago. I need to balance my weeks out better, make ‘em less front-loaded. Now feel free to make your jokes about how that means I’m still gonna be late for Wednesdays; get it out of your system if you need to. All I know is it’s gonna be better for me if just a little. So REMEMBER, I UPDATE ON WEDNESDAYS FROM NOW ON.

This one took me forever and 2 eternities to do. I hope you like it. I’m tryin’ to move the story forward, so that called for an exposition-splosion™! That’s ok, reading is good for you. Then I went through about 30 different punchlines, which included references to ligers, manticores, lesbians, Vulcans, and Tina Fey. Apologies and thanks to my buddies whom I bombarded with these.

In case you missed it, I did a piece reviewing the new Aliens vs. Predator videogame for Comics Alliance. It actually made the front page of Digg, so you just KNOW it’s good (… enough for a Digg power-user to have submitted it). Checkitout!

And keep up with all bonus content at the aLp Facebook page and/or my Twitter account.

SEE YOU BACK HERE NEXT WEDNESDAY

Edit, Tue. 3/9: I’m gonna be late with this week’s comic… it’ll be up tomorrow (Wednesday). Sorry! It’s a full-pager though! In the meantime check out my piece for Comics Alliance on the new Aliens vs. Predator game.

Hey, who is this guy? You might think he’s a deus ex machina, but then you will have fallen into my trap.

I had more of the story to get into but I had to cut this one down to 3 panels cuz it’s a crazy week for me. I was asked to do a piece reviewing the new AvP videogame so I’m workin’ on that… you can get a sneak peek at it (and otherwise get all sorts of other bonus stuff) if you become a fan at the aLp Facebook page or follow me on Twitter…

Y-G-O-L-O-H-C-Y-S-P

Now that I’ve gotten all the grammar jokes out of my system (for now)… an actual plot development starts next episode! I’d say it’s about time.

GRAMMARSPLOSION!!

Have you ever actually heard anyone use the (non-) word irregardless? I mean everyone’s always like, DON’T MAKE THIS COMMON MISTAKE but I’ve never actually seen anyone make that mistake. It reminds me of the Yogi Berra-ism, that place is so crowded no ever goes there anymore.

But hold on, some of you may be saying, irregardless IS a word. No it isn’t, you’re just an idiot. I’m all for so-called nonstandard uses of words or phrases becoming unofficially accepted - I find nothing wrong with the phrase “more unique” (”more fatal”, though… that’s weird) - but when it’s just wrong, it’s wrong. And you’re wrong.

Since I can’t imagine anyone actually using irregardless for real (right??) it’s moot. But you know what, I really hate “I could care less”; if I catch you saying that I will destroy you.

Hey, the new Sega/Rebellion Aliens vs. Predator game is out today. I’ve been asked to do a promotional piece for it (which hopefully you’ll see soon) so I got an advance copy of it (for the PS3) and it’s fun times. If you wanna roll with me online my PSN ID’s aLpbernie.

I’m gonna drop some ULTIMATE KNOWLEDGE on you! We all know “ultimate” means “final”, and we damn sure as hell should know “penultimate” means “next to last”. BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE. The word for “third to last” is antepenultimate. And just when you think, can it get any crazier?? The word for “fourth to last” is preantepenultimate.

Unfortunately, as far as I can see, “they” decided to stop there. Which is a shame, really, since one of my favorite things is when language complicobfuscates communication. I wonder why they - I guess the 18th century wordmakers - stopped there? The only thing I can think of is Twitter had an even shorter post limit back then.

As for bi-annual… if you’re confused whether it does mean twice a year, or once every 2 years, that’s because it can mean either. According to that link above, the recommended usage is twice a year… which is exactly the opposite of how I think most people use the more common “bi-monthly” - once every 2 months.

I bet you probably wish you hadn’t read this post now.

BONUS PANEL: I originally wrote a different ultimate panel but then got worried that I’d lose a lot of folks on the big word I used. What do you think? Check it out by following me on Twitter or becoming a fan at the aLp page on Facebook. Thanks

I have no idea why I gave the homeless guy a scythe.

Yeah, sorry this one’s late… as you may have caught, I was absolutely destroyed by some weird 24-hour bug yesterday so I couldn’t do anything but moan and make other assorted weak noises. I’m feeling way better today, though, thankfully. I guess I was lucky I wasn’t sick on my bibthdag on Monday, that would’ve sucked.

I did get dismissed from jury duty last week after they interviewed me for 30 seconds, but after I’d sat there doing absolutely nothing for 12 hours over 2 days. I learned a lot of interesting stuff about the process from watching and listening to everything go down, and from all the folks who emailed or twittered their jury duty stories to me - thanks…

It turns out there’s tons of different reasons the judge, the lawyers or the defendant will dismiss you for, so it’s a real piece o’ cake to get out of a trial and you don’t even have to lie. All you gotta do is say something remotely interesting about yourself - “I vacationed in Venezuela last year” - and they’ll go wait, Venezuela’s in South America… there’s llamas in South America… llama rhymes with Obama… who wants to kill old people with his health care plan… just like the defendant does with his machete, and they’ll kick you out for being a likely killer-sympathizer.

Or more simply, and seriously, if you just say you watch CSI you’ll have a good chance of being dismissed because you probably believe there needs to be gunshot residue, blood spatter and blue-glowing sperm all on the defendant’s face in order to prove him guilty.

A friend of mine told me his story of how the defense attorney dismissed him on the spot just because he knew what the definition of the charge against his client was. A reader said she was dismissed because she showed she had a good memory by recalling details of the last trial she was on years ago, theorizing that some lawyers don’t want you to remember anything but their histrionic opening and closing arguments.

In my case, all I really said was I’m a comic artist, and I recently did a bit of editorial cartooning, and they were like shit, we can’t have a dude with an opinion on our jury so that was it. Finally! It was about time my comics were good for something. Also, I made some “white people talk like this, while black people talk like this” jokes.

FREEDOM!

Edit, 1/26: Argh, I got hit by a bug or something and my whole body hurts so I can’t really function. So, sorry, but today’s comic will be delayed. Hopefully I’ll have it up by tomorrow. Ow ow ow

Edit, 1/22: My blog post about getting out of jury duty. Guaranteed or your money back.

I did get dismissed from jury duty last week after they interviewed me for 30 seconds, but after I’d sat there doing absolutely nothing for 12 hours over 2 days. I learned a lot of interesting stuff about the process from watching and listening to everything go down, and from all the folks who emailed or twittered their jury duty stories to me, so thanks to you guys. I’m writing a short blog post about it which I’ll put up tomorrow.

There’s not enough you’re so white jokes out there so here’s a few. My buddy Noah contributed the Mos Def line so shout-out to him (I’m so white I use the term “shout-out”). Best I found on Google was something like you’re so white, the government takes away money instead of giving it to you… which is all right, though I think it’s more interesting to contrast it with what banks do, which is the exact opposite (this is from a Louis CK bit) - when you’re rich, banks give you more money, and when you’re poor they charge you low-balance fees. Yeah I just sucked all the humor out of it all, but at least I hope you found my comic funny today. Apparently this here’s a zero-sum comedy site.

Let’s do this again… I’ll be running sweepstakes over at the aLp Facebook page every week. Become a fan, click the “Reviews” tab at the top, write a short review, and you’ll be entered in a random drawing for a free aLp fridge magnet! The new winner will be announced next week. Btw if you’ve already entered, you don’t have to do it again. Thanks and good luck!

I’m posting this update from the courthouse, where I’ll be all day waiting to see if I get picked to be on a trial jury. Everyone says act crazy so they won’t pick you, but… no that’s just what they’ll be expecting. Instead (if I get picked) I’m gonna be the BEST JUROR EVER and put all these other punkass jurors on their asses. I’ll be raising my right hand the highest and yelling things like SUSTAINED and I’LL ALLOW IT louder than anyone else. In the end they’ll have no choice but to award me the Nobel Jury Duty Prize.

God, kill me now

As I mentioned on Friday… I’ll be running sweepstakes over at the aLp Facebook page every week. Become a fan, click the “Reviews” tab at the top, write a short review, and you’ll be entered in a random drawing for a free aLp fridge magnet! The new winner will be announced on Friday. Thanks and good luck!

Reminder: Follow me on Twitter, become a fan at the aLp page on Facebook, hang out on the official aLp forums.