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I’m finally (I hope) on the upward climb out of a mildly nasty cold I’ve been working through the last four or five days. It wasn’t incapacitating, but it did keep me on bed/couch-rest for a few days, erased most of my social calendar, and tossed out my exercise routine. I tried working through it, as I have/had both editor-imposed and self-imposed deadlines, but didn’t accomplish as much as all of this forced time locked in my house could otherwise yield. I did manage to get out and have a normal dinner and a drink at a favorite bar for one of my best pals, Mikey Vegas, although the smoke inhalation from a few hours at Frankie’s Tiki Room might have set my recovery back a few days. Eh, it was worth it.

I know it’s been a while since any new comics of mine have graced your eyeballs, but if all works out, the fruits of the above-displayed labors should be coming your way, either electronically or digitally, in the next few months-to-a-year. The crappy artwork comes from various production stages of the sequel to the Utopian, about which I’m sure I’ll bore you with more details soon. The awesome artwork I’m digitally coloring is by Argentine artist Damian Couceiro, from a project-in-development he and I are working on … and that’s all I’ll say about that.

In other news, I’ll have announcements of upcoming events, both in the worlds of comics and music, coming very soon, so stay tuned!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Geoff Carter. Today we celebrate his ahem ahem birthday, and I’m celebrating by enshrining him in digital portrait for all eternity (or until the web implodes). For those who aren’t lucky enough to know Geoff, I’ll say this: Your life is a little less rich for that omission.

I’ve known Mr. Carter since I was but a young lad, back when we both still had full heads of long hair (only one of us does now; sadly, it’s not me), through the usual channels (basically, I don’t remember, but poetry, coffee and possibly mutual lovers played into it somehow). I knew him then as a poet, a snappy vest-wearer, an aficionado of good music and great literature, and someone who never gave himself enough credit. Geoff went on to become a writer and columnist for Scope Magazine (the precursor to the Las Vegas Weekly), a web content guru for the Las Vegas Sun and the precursor to VEGAS.com, and then he later emerged from a darkroom cocoon as a fantastic amateur photographer, just as he set sail for greener (and wetter) pastures in lovely Seattle, where he continues to ply his word trade.

We’ve stayed friends all these years, mainly and especially thanks to the magic of the interwebs. It was Geoff who was mostly responsible for turning me onto LiveJournal, through which I developed most of the good friends I have to this day, coming out of post-divorce fallout. And thanks to the magic of giant cylinders that float through the sky on jet-powered wings, I’ve probably physically hung out with that bastard more often over the last four or five years than we did in the previous 10 or 15.

It’s criminally unfair that Geoff Carter is not a household name. See, some of us hacks are really good at being in the right time and place, and have somehow attained a reasonable level of success and gainful employment through sheer willpower, despite not actually being that talented. The fact is, Geoff can write circles around just about anyone I know, myself included. He has a poet’s soul, but a humorist’s canny. He can work a camera, naturally, with no training or special lighting or planning, better than a lot of “pro” photogs I’ve come across. And the motherf*cker just gets fitter and better-looking as he gets older, not counting his fabulous mane of fashionably gray-ish hair.

So, Geoff, happy birthday. And people of the world, when Geoff finally finishes that novel he’s been working on for ahem ahem years, and it’s available in what few bookstores are left outside of your iPads and Kindles and Swindles and Bindles, you best know you’re gonna buy/download/steal that sh*t, and then you, too, will want to be Geoff Carter when you grow up.

As I do most weeknights about 6 p.m., I was listening to The Story with Dick Gordon on NPR (via our fab local affiliate, KNPR) tonight in my car. Dick’s guest, scientist John Priscu, was talking about the recent progress made by Russian researchers in their probing of a giant sub-glacial lake in Antarctica, and what American scientists will be doing soon a other lakes buried beneath the ice there. I’ve heard bits and pieces about this discovery of life existing in these multi-mile-deep lakes, but it wasn’t until hearing Priscu on today’s show hypothesizing that there are entire eco-systems under there that have thrived for millions of years without seeing the light of day that it was really put into perspective: Scientists are uncovering not only liquid water beneath an entire continent frozen over with ice for untold epochs, they’re not only theorizing that there are advanced forms of unknown life down there, but according to Priscu’s projections, they may find that at the bottom of these lakes, the water might actually be warm. Essentially?

The Savage Land might be real. Sort of.

See, way back in the 1960s, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced readers of the X-Men comic book series to the Savage Land, a mysterious, tropical preserve hidden within Antarctica, filled with prehistoric creatures (and other weird beasts befitting the sci-fi aspect of these stories). At first unexplained, later comic book writers attributed the Savage Land’s existence to some alien race fiddling around down there, but I prefer the original notion of its architects: a land that time forgot.

And that’s what we’ve got here, folks: Scientists are uncovering a world hidden beneath the otherwise barren Antarctic wasteland, one preserved beneath the ice for tens of millions of years, replete with lakes and streams and, yes, life. Now, will that “life” involve anything more than resourceful bacteria living off the exhausts of the Earth’s core? No one is sure. Will we find prehistoric fish and plankton living in a pitch-black, watery world? No way to tell yet. Will there be Man-Apes and sabertooth tigers and Tubanti Fish People? Highly unlikely.

But did Jack Kirby’s imagination somehow tap into a real truth, bubbling just a few miles and about 50 years away beneath the surface of Antarctica?

Hell yes.

An oldie but goodie. Have I talked about how much of an influence Henry Rollins has been on my life/career? I have? Oh, all right then.

Happy birthday, Hank.

I really thought I started to type up this post already, but I suppose I might be confusing that with the “Giving Thanks” post from Thanksgiving. And then I looked back to see if I did a year-in-review post in 2010, but nope, doesn’t look like it. So … I guess I’m working from scratch here.

My good frenemy James Reza posted something on Facebook the other day to the effect of “there are five days left in 2011, make the most of them.” Good advice. But do enough of us take that advice to its next logical step, making the most of EVERY day, EVERY year? It’s hard to do so, I know. I mean, how many people would define “making the most” as waking up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, putting your kids to bed, and passing out watching Jimmy Fallon. Yet, some variation of this ritual is what most of us consider “a day” in our adult lives.

So how do you “make the most” of the mundane? One might suggest by putting your all into these things: Waking up to a hearty breakfast or invigorating jog; putting 110 percent into that PowerPoint presentation; having a tea party with your daughter after work; surprising your lover with an unexpected gift. Others might have a different standard for “making the most” of your day. They might have more superheroic ideals: Climbing a mountain; feeding the homeless; getting in bar fights; making meaningful art; running for public office.

Me, I fall squarely in the middle. In between doing what needs to be done to maintain my health, pay my bills and take care of those around me, I’m always striving to do more, to make an impact, in some way, in any way. Often, Sara asks me what I’m working on, or what I have to “do.” And she knows, almost without fail, that answer will be “stuff.” What stuff? Just “stuff.” Comics. Music. Art. Screenplays. Novels. Websites. Blogs. Videos. Whatever is currently (barely) satiating that weird, burning inside of me that makes me feel guilty when I’m not “producing,” that makes me antsy during holidays and terrible company on vacations.

However, sometimes I wonder where all this “stuff” gets me. I wonder what it contributes to the world. I wonder how it’s bettering society, myself or those around me. And so, here at the dusk of another Gregorian calendar year, I’m looking back over the last 12 months, assessing where I’ve been and deciding where to go. 2011 went by so quickly (don’t they all?), I honestly can hardly believe how long ago some of its events happened.

This year, I published a few comics. My band finally finished recording and released a full-length CD. I got paid to do more illustration, but did less (journalistic) writing. I started a new blog or two. I curated my first – and second – gallery exhibits. I created more crappy art for group and solo art shows. I made the transition back to playing guitar, even as I jammed on drums with more people. I traveled. I ran my first 5k. I kept running. I lost weight. I drank too much. I donated to charity. I gave up on politics. I adjusted (improved?) my diet. I attempted to become a street fighter (and failed). I made a short film. I helped launch a podcast.

That was 2011. What will 2012 look like? I have two screenplays to finish. I have one graphic novel in development. I have a new comic series that’s almost ready to pitch. As Yet Unbroken has a new drummer, and we have a new CD to support. I have to make some big decisions about my involvement in a lot of things. But no matter what, I’ll be doing “stuff.” The question is, will it be stuff that matters, or just more white noise thrust upon the world?

Check back with me this time next year. Happy new year.

I knew doing an all-protein diet with my limited food palate was going to be tough. And sure enough, by Thursday (day 4) of this nonsense, I was getting pretty bored with eating nothing but fish, egg whites and non-starchy vegetables. As discussed last time, my body had started ketosis, and I had already lost a few pounds (mainly from consuming about a third of my normal calorie intake). But also on Thursday, I started worrying a lot more about side effects: The increased cholesterol intake, the lack of productivity due to brain fuzziness, messing up my fast metabolism, etc.

That said, I started Thursday staying pretty true to the diet, but I knew that Sara and I were staying overnight on the Strip and had plans to do dinner, which would normally be super-enjoyable, but I was kind of wracked trying to plan low-carb, low-fat meals based on the menus from area restaurants. I started to realize that my goal with this was not to lose an immense amount of weight (though I did lose another pound by Thursday) or go full-paleo (not gonna happen, sorry friends), but to become more conscious of the extra “filler” food I eat that just ends up around my waist and on my face.

Still, I kept it careful. I had my first drop of liquor in a week, but even that decision was motivated by the diet — an uncharacteristic choice of Jack and Diet Coke (which breaks my normal rule of “no caffeine,” but I had to choose the lesser of two evils). Oddly, after all the hand-wringing over dinner choices, we ended up, of all places, at Holstein’s inside the Cosmopolitan — A BURGER JOINT. But even then, I tried to moderate, eating a salmon burger without the bun, plus a salad, and then … then the steak fries that came with it taunted me. Tempted me. Teased me. And then attacked my mouth with deep-fried, salty goodness. I tried to do good, and only had maybe five or six of them, but by then … it was over. The carbs and fat were in me. And, for the first time in five days, I felt full — a bit too full, honestly — and realized how much I don’t like that feeling.

After that, I came to the realization that I could continue to be more mindful by making simple tweaks on a daily basis to eschew processed foods and needless calories without making huge, uncomfortable changes, and then still have the freedom to splurge for special occasions. On Friday, I had my usual egg white veggie omelette at Blueberry Hill for breakfast, but I didn’t eat the toast, and only nibbled on a few hash brown threads. Instead of the usual 3-4 tablespoons of sugar in my decaf coffee, I opted for a packet each of Sweet n’ Low and Equal. And I ran a good five miles that day, ready for whatever the night brought.

I officially ended diet week at Firefly last night, with two glasses of sangria, a serving of patatas bravas and apple-manchengo salad sealing my fate. But I culled plenty of protein from ahi tuna skewers, and even after that meal, didn’t feel super-bloated or too full. Just right.

Today, I’ve been trying to keep it balanced. I had oatmeal for breakfast, because honestly, I couldn’t stand the thought of more egg whites, but when it came time for lunch, I made one of my standard tofu-and-veggies dishes WITHOUT rice, which I always enjoy, and guess what? I was just as full and satiated, even without the extra carbs and calories. And that’s the plan: Keep up with these adjustments, eat a little more conscientiously, and when I need a reboot, well, you know you’ll read about it here.

But let’s not kid ourselves: I’m going to a holiday party tonight. And if there are cookies, I’m going to eat them. Ho ho ho, my friends.

Day three of my take on the all-protein diet thing has passed, and according to the little strip onto which I peed last night, I have a “small” amount of ketones floating around inside my body. Yes, those are the things generated when the body stops burning carb stores and starts burning fat (it’s more technical than that, but that’s the gist). “Small” doesn’t sound like much, but according to the test package, a normal person should yield a “negative” result, so I am actually getting somewhere with all this, I guess.

I can feel it too. I was much crankier yesterday, had a harder time focusing, and I had a very dull headache most of the day. I screwed up and woke up late, so instead of making solid food for breakfast, I had a protein shake, but I made up for it during lunch, though I kinda blew the “no fat” portion of this process. I actually ate out, and basically ate the contents of a salmon filet wrap without the wrap, so it was just salmon and arugula (plus a little salad). But I forgot to ask for no sauce on it, and while the tomato aioli was tasty as all get out, it was also basically pure fat (being an oil-based sauce). Good fat, sure, but way, way more than the plan allows. The rest of the day I stuck with self-prepared foods. I actually snuck in a Morningstar veggie sausage patty, which surprisingly has less carbs than the asparagus I ate with it! So that expanded my food options, which is good.

Tonight, the lady and I have a little staycation-type date planned, which will include dinner, so I’m curious to see how that goes. I am going to start working back toward a more diversified diet as the weekend approaches, but I don’t want to blow the progress I’ve made just yet. So I’ll be keeping it to lean protein and non-starchy veggies at least through Friday, when my next workout will probably happen. I do have some shenanigans planned over the weekend, and I’d hate to be a carb-deprived zombie for them.