My weird little obsession

There's this thing I do. Almost compulsively. Fortunately, it costs nothing (well, there are no incremental costs over my initial investment) and the mess it makes is no bigger than a few square inches. It doesn't hurt anybody except all those hookers I've killed in the basement and it's actually proven to be pretty educational.

But it's hard to describe in one sentence. Here goes, though: I visit my four favorite cartoon web sites every day (see sidebar to your right) and save my favorite cartoons in a folder on my computer. If a cartoon isn't funny all the way through but one of the little panels (or even a part of one of the little panels) is, I chop it up in my Photoshop and save the good parts in a separate sub-folder. (Two sentences. See?)

And do I ever look at these little cartoonlets again once I've filed them away? Yes, but only if I get a little browsy when I'm adding new clippings to the folder. Do I have a purpose for them? Theoretically, I plan to use them as clever little sign-offs to my clever little emails. Theoretically.

But there really is an educational part: It's helped me become quite the little Photoshop autodidact—especially when the tiny little funny part of a cartoon needs to be surgically removed from its non-funny surroundings and I have to fill in the resulting holes so as not to confuse the women and children.

And since my fabulous new job (technically, it's the same job I already had but now with an awesome new team and a cool new client base and exciting new challenges) has sucked away all my blogging time over the last few weeks (I billed 72 hours last week!) I'll just leave you with some of the disjointed evidence of my goofy little obsession: