A couple of weeks (or so) ago, my phone rang. I picked it up to hear a recording of a very excited man congratulating me for winning a trip to Cancun! All I had to do was push 1 to claim my prize.

Now, of course I knew that this was a telemarketing deal and by pushing 1, I was inviting a salesperson to try their best to ram a pricey vacation package down my throat then reach up my ass and pull out a commission.

I had some fun with that guy by pretending to be a complete moron who was jumping up and down, convinced that I was going to Cancun for free. I made it as difficult as possible for the salesman to break the soul-shattering news to my dumb persona by telling him how I'd never won anything in my life and that this was "the best thing that has ever happened to me". When the salesman explained that I hadn't actually won anything, but their promotional deal was "so great it was almost like winning", I made sure to not understand what he meant and prolong the awkwardness for as long as possible.

"Well yeah, but I don't need that promotion though right? Because I won a trip to Cancun!"

"Well Sir, right now we're offering..."

"Are you calling from Cancun? Are you there now? Did you win a contest too?!"

"Well, we're offering to treat you like royalty for a week for one low price and..."

"I've been so sad lately and this just changes my life! I'm literally doing the Snoopy dance right now!" I wasn't.

In the interest of believability, I eventually began to show signs of comprehension caked in bitter disappointment. Although the salesman seemed to believe my reactions were true, he really didn't seem to give a crap that he'd stepped on my smiling face and crushed what I'd claimed to be the greatest moment in my life.

"So... so I didn't win anything?"

"Well, our promotion is so good, it's like winning." He kept saying that. I'm pretty sure it was written on a piece of paper that was stuck to his cubicle wall with a hunting knife stabbed through it.

"So I... I lose?"

"No Sir, we're ready to offer you $2,500 off of our amazing package right now. It's a great deal and available for a very limited time."

"Well that actually does sound like a great deal. Would I be able to purchase the package from you over the phone with my credit card?"

"Yes Sir, I can do that for you, no problem."

"Would I be able to pay the full amount right away or do I have to pay in payments?"

"Oh no, a full payment is very easy to do. I can arrange that for you right away if you like."

"Oh that's great because I really want to buy this trip. You've definitely made a sale. Well... actually it's like you've made a sale, but it's really just me telling you to fuck off."

That's where I ended the call. Usually after I've had my fun with telemarketers (remember, it's not a prank call if they call you) I tell them to put me in the 'do not call' list. Apparently, by law, they have to do this. However, I forgot to tell Mr. Cancun to put me on such a list which led to...

THUNT VS CANCUN PART II

Today I got another call from that happy recording, telling me that I'd won a trip to Cancun! ... Again!

I sighed and pressed 1 to claim my prize. Soon I was talking to a lovely lady who asked how I was and began telling me about their amazing vacation deal.

"I won a trip to Cancun!" I interrupted with excitement.

"Actually no, I'm offering you a promotional deal worth $2,500..."

"Can I just have the cash?"

"What? No, it doesn't work that way. For a limited time, you can..."

"This is the second time I won! I mean Jesus Christ, what are the odds, right?"

"You didn't actually win anything." This lady was a bit more truthful about the whole deal.

"I disagree, I won a trip to Cancun. That's what the recording told me. Twice. So can I have both of my prizes converted to cash on one check or do I need to get two separate checks?"

At this point the lady seemed to have decided to play this call by the book. Maybe she thought she was being tested with a weird training call or something, but she refused to do anything other than read from her sales pitches that were no doubt tucked into the three-ring binder in front of her (by the way, I'll bet $50 that there are a minimum of two hearts doodled somewhere on that binder). No matter how bizarre I got, she kept reading her pitches word for word. Sometimes talking right over me. Eventually I got bored and...

"Look, I'll be honest with you. You're company called me up and tried to reel me in with a flimsy lie about winning a contest. It's pretty low." I waited for her response but was met with only silence until...

"The weather in Cancun has been beautiful and so this is a better time than ever to..."

"Are seriously still trying to sell me?"

"Look, this is my job."

"Well your job is lying to people, disappointing them, then using that to squeeze a sale out of them."

Silence.

"Sir, since you're still on the line I can only assume that you are interested in one of our vacation packages. Perhaps I can tell you about..."

At this point something glorious dawned on me and I swear to GOD that I actually heard angels singing above me as the sun suddenly shone a bit brighter through my window. I had reached telemarketing Nirvana.

"Wait a second," I said "you... you're not allowed to hang up on me are you."

Silence.

"You can save $2,500 on..."

"You can't hang up on me! You have to hard sell me until you either make a sale or I hang up!"

Silence.

"Sir, since you're still on the line I can only assume that you are interested in one of our..."

"BAHAHAHAHA! This is awesome! What should I tell you about? Want me to describe my big toe to you? Because I may be interested in hearing about your Cancun package if you learn all about my big toe. You better not hang up on me because this vacation dealy is starting to sound pretty sweet."

Silence.

"...interested in one of our vacation packages. Perhaps I can tell you about our amazing..."

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if you swished with liquid paper? I always wondered if it'd make a thin, white, rubbery cast of the inside of my mouth."

"...perhaps I can tell you about our amazing package deal which includes..."


This sort of back and forth went on for over ten minutes until she eventually broke her company's rule and hung up the phone. I will remember this telemarketing call as my Magnum Opus of received telemarketing calls. Also, I have a weird urge to plan a trip to Cancun.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

New sneak peek under the vote button (you know, the goblin with the shield over there).

Silly dwarf, that is yucky stuff and it is not for drinking.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

In a whorish attempt to up the number of Twitter followers I have, I'm going to be posting most of my sneak peeks through my Twitter account. If you really hate Twitter, you can still see the links to the sneak peeks from this page in that little Twitter box over there.

Not counting act of God, I can actually guarantee an update tomorrow at noon (-8 GMT) since it's already finished.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

The sneak peek that's under the vote button (to the lower right of this blog) is not actually in 3-D, but it's close.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

Under the vote button, we see a sneak peek of the upcoming update, starring Minmax, Forgath and a gathering crowd.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

All thieves suck.

The idea of taking something away from someone else really pisses me off. However, stealing something that someone else not only owns, but also worked hard to create sends me into a molten, poptartian frenzy (to me, Poptarts represent anger, just go with it).

Typing the phrase art thief doesn't really describe these "artists" properly, so let's call them, oh I don't know... doucheparrots. Parrots copy others and douche is not only insulting, it's fun to type in a rant.

A few days ago, the folks over at hottopic.com were caught selling a tshirt that had a barely altered version of this image which was drawn by Vera Brosgol (check out her very cool site for more of her work). Vera sent Hot Topic an email and in all fairness, they got back to her pretty fast and promised to take the shirt off of their site, which they did. We'll never know for sure if Hot Topic knew that the image was stolen, but we certainly know that the doucheparrot who "drew" it knew. He (or she) is talentless, scum.

Okay, so everything was worked out. The shirt disappeared and Vera (who is obviously much more mature than I am) quietly moved onto doing what she does well, creating original art. End of the story, right? No.

Today, Hot Topic was caught again. This time they were selling buttons with art stolen directly from Meghan Murphy (whose very cool comic can be seen here). Now before we grab our pitchforks and torches, let's remember that Hot Topic might legitimately have no idea that they've hired doucheparrots. Maybe they genuinely want to sell original merchandise and they're victims of the doucheparrot people, who are dragging the good name of Hot Topic through the mud. If this is true, they had better take a close look at how they're doing business and make some much needed changes. Maybe fire whoever is responsible and start printing "We're sorry we were Pooheads to the real artists" tshirts.

And just because I'm really angry at these art thieves right now, I (or rather Mike Tyndall) present to you, Todd Goldman the King Doucheparrot. This guy deserves something angry and stinging to crawl up his pant leg. Also note that the doucheparrot in question not only stole artwork from dozens and dozens of artists, but he then threatened legal action against Mike Tyndall for making "defaming, derogatory and malicious statements" about him on that page. Now, even though I'm talking poorly about Todd Goldman here, I can't be sued because Todd Goldman is a name I just made up.

It's original, I swear.

I created that name and it's my work.

Not stolen, totally a Thunt original.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

I've been getting emails and requests on Twitter for me to explain just how the door solution worked. To see how the solution was found, check this out.

I think that it would have been much better if I'd set up the password to be something recognisable instead of a gibberish word. Some people got the word, but weren't sure if it was correct because seriously, what is a leafoof?

In other news, I am nominated for an Aurora Award! In Canada, this is actually a big deal. You get a huge trophy and your very own TARDIS! Okay, maybe not a TARDIS. Here's how the Auroras work...

The five artists who get the most nominations by Feb. 15th end up on "the ballot". From there, a voting system starts in May at Keycon 27. So if you're a Canadian citizen living in or outside of Canada or a permanent resident in Canada, then you can make me feel like a big shot by nominating me here in the catagory of Artistic Achievement - 2009.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go shower off the stench of vote-whoring.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

It's weird how much flak I've gotten for Wil Wheaton's mention of me. Everything from stand-offish sarcasm from a few emails, to others angrily using Twitter to contact both Wheaton and myself. What's the big deal? I'm a fan of his, so I drew him into my comic and twittered about it. Yes, I twittered about how I wanted him to see it. I didn't start a spam campaign or pass out his email address or anything. I twittered that I wanted the guy to see my work. Now before you start painting "Thunt was getting his readers to spam Wheaton" on a sign and waving it above your head, let's take a moment to look at some important numbers.

-Wheaton has close to two million followers on Twitter.
-He Tweets dozens of times a day, often with inane/entertaining questions to his followers.
-I currently have a meager 1,450ish followers and when I ask them a question such as "can condensed milk go in tea" I get maybe 30-50 responses in the space of a couple hours.

So if (1,450 Twitter followers + inane question = 30 to 50 tweets) then (1,638,000 Twitter followers + inane question = somewhere around 49,000 tweets) I actually can't imagine him getting 49,000 responses every time he asks a question on Twitter, but lets just say, considering how many times he tweets with fun questions or "look at a picture of the waffles I ate for breakfast", that it's a lot. Wil Wheaton is clearly not a man who minds getting Twitter traffic.

Does my mentioning on Twitter about how much I'd like Wheaton to look at my comic, get people to send him tweets? Yes. Does it flood him with spam? Of course not. The tweets he got about my comic from Goblins readers is nothing when compared to his usual daily traffic, which as I've mentioned, he encourages. Let's also not forget that we're talking about Twitter here. Twitter. It's not his email or his website, it's Twitter. The same social networking site that people use to show pics of their cat sleeping or their lucky D-twenty. This is the site that is primarily used to tell the world that your shoelace broke or that the guy in front of you at the bank has body odour. Twitter is simplistic, pseudo-intellectual tripe and I freaking love it. It's the perfect place to say "hey geeky celebrity, check out my backwater, Canadian comic in which you appear cause you rock".

One email that I received talked about how Wheaton only linked to me on Twitter to "shut me up". However, Wil also copied a snip of my comic and posted it on his Tumblr account along with a comment about how funny he found it and how he liked the shirt I'd drawn him in. This doesn't seem like the actions of a guy who just wants to shut me up or who feels like I'm flooding him with a tidal wave of spam.

Now that that's said, let me take this moment to recommend his books. They're pretty much mandatory reading for any geek and you can find them along with a huge amount of other brilliant and hilarious material over at his site. Along with my recommendation to buy his books, I'm aggressively asking all my readers to go over to his Twitter account and tell him how awesome he is. Tell him he's intelligent, tell him he's funny. Make him smile. In fact, I also want everyone to go over to Neil Patrick Harris' Twitter account and compliment him for rocking our worlds. Then when you're all done there, head to Girl Genius' Twitter and thank the Foglios for making such great comics. Then onto Lar deSouza and Ryan Sohmer for their inspiring work. Wait a second... my call to spam is starting to look an awful lot like social networking. Hmmm...

You see, as much as I'd like to think that I have the kind of tspamnami powers that some angry folks claim I have, I'm just one more person having some fun on Twitter, and what some people call "encouragement to spam", I call respecting someone I look up to by telling folks about him in my own way.

As always, thanks for reading and following me on Twitter.

~Thunt

Audio ads, as you probably know, are those ads that spew out annoying sound while you're trying to browse a site. It's been brought to my attention by a few annoyed readers that Goblins sometimes shows an audio ad.

I hate audio ads. I hate them more than I hate brussel sprouts, and I hate brussel sprouts. Keenspot manages the ad rotation on my site and they hate audio ads too, that's why they've blocked them from Goblins and their other sites. However, some audio ads are still getting through and somehow making their way onto my comic. I hate this more than I hate brussel sprouts with an earwax center, and I hate brussel sprouts with an earwax center. I've contacted the Keenspotian Gods about this and I'm going to do everything I can to stop this from ever happening again, because I hate this. I hate it more than I hate brussel sprouts with an earwax center dusted in powdered glass, and I hate brussel sprouts with an earwax center dusted in powdered glass. In the meantime, please bear with me.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt

PS - Brussel sprouts are yucky.

For the last day and a half, I've been without electricity. A wind storm knocked down a whole bunch of trees in my area, taking out power lines all over the place. Although this looked pretty cool, it stopped me dead as far as finishing the update that should have gone up on Monday.

Power lines and cable lines were all repaired and now I'm back in the realm of heated food and light!

In other news, one of the maple trees in our front yard fell over during the wind storm and did some minor damage to the front of our house. I'm going to miss that tree. :(

I'll try and have the update up sometime on Tuesday night.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt