I’ve been talking about updating my robot website, roboboring, for a really long time. And now, it’s finally happening. Kind of. Thanks to the efforts of Amir Cohen, Caldwell Tanner and myself (but mostly them) we’re launching our newest robot site, Totally Robot.

It’s a lot like roboboring in that I’ll continue to draw comics. But it’s also really different. Totally Robot is going to be a home for all things robotic. So if you have robot stories, pictures, drawings, movies, anything, just send them to totesrobot at gmail dot com. Of course, suggestions for comics are still welcome.

It’s hard for me to write this. I think I have a roach problem. They’re not crawling all over the place or anything, in fact I’ve only seen two since I moved in on May 12th. But in a way, this is worse. It seems like they only come out every once in a while just to instill the fear in me that they exist.

I saw the first cockroach the day after I moved in. My stuff was still unpacked, and was scattered all over the place. It was early in the morning and I was laying on my bed when I saw an enormous roach scurrying across the floor. I froze. Terrified, I watched it crawl under my refrigerator. I put my head back in defeat. I had moved into a cockroach infested apartment. I couldn’t help but imagine a huge colony of insects running around behind my kitchen appliances, plotting how they were going to crawl into my mouth while I slept. I was still thinking about this when the cockroach reemerged and slowly crawled toward my nightstand. I leapt up, I got a huge roll of paper towels and I silently crept toward the bug. It was so big, and I really didn’t want to have to feel it crush in my hands, so I decided to try to trap it in the paper towel and throw it out the window. That didn’t work. The cockroach freaked out, I freaked out, I had to kill it. I didn’t want to. It just happened.

At first I was sure that there were tons of cockroach witnesses. Who saw me kill their brother or their friend or whoever he was. I felt like they were plotting revenge. Every night I got home I was scared to turn on the lights because I thought I’d just see my floor covered in cockroaches. Opening closets was hard to do without bracing myself. But eventually I started to rationalize, that cockroach must have come into my apartment by accident. That’s why he crossed the floor in broad daylight, that’s why he didn’t stay behind the fridge, that’s why he got so scared when I tried to help him. I finally started feeling comfortable in my place. After almost 2 months, I was confident. Then there was yesterday.

The cockroach I saw yesterday wasn’t any bigger than the first one. But he was on the toilet seat. To me, thinking that cockroaches are coming out of my toilet is pretty much the worst thing that can happen. I killed this one without mercy, I flushed the toilet and pushed him in. I did feel bad, but I’m operating out of fear, not moral code. So now I’m stuck. Do I get roach traps? I’m afraid that will just attract more. Do I call my landlord? I bet he’d set set up traps. Do I start sleeping with protective netting? Where do they sell that?

In a way this whole thing makes me feel like a true New Yorker. Not just because of this problem so many of us share. But because I know that this means I have to harden as a person. I’m a 6 foot tall human being. And even the biggest cockroach I’ve seen isn’t more than a few inches long. I am smarter. I am faster. I have paper towels. I have a toilet that I can flush. I don’t necessarily want to say “Bring it on.” But if these cockroaches want to keep showing up one at a time every other month. I’m ready.

I just got a netflix account a few weeks ago and I’ve been trying to rent all the classic movies I should have seen but haven’t. One movie on my list was Dead Man Walking. I thought the movie was pretty cool, but I think I was more into the whole idea behind the subject matter. The death penalty to me is just insane. I realize the guys on death row have done some pretty fucked up things, but thinking about having to know when you’re going to die really terrifies me.

I think the way the whole thing works is especially confusing. The death penalty seems to mainly be about justice, you take a life, the government takes yours. But it’s not really an eye for an eye. A murder victim doesn’t usually get to have a last meal of his or her choice, they don’t get to say goodbye to loved ones, they don’t have the opportunity to leave the world with thoughtful final words. I don’t know that there’s any way I would try to improve the process, it just seems weird.

Anyway, after the movie I felt compelled to spend about an hour googling the last words from convicts on death row. It was both interesting and addicting, albeit kind of morbid. The site I (enjoyed?) the most I think is this one. Particularly because I can read a convicts crime, their last meal and their final words. It’s so strange to read about someone like Like Karl Chamberlain, a murderer and rapist who for his last meal was entitled to a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, lunch meat, deviled eggs, six fried cheese-stuffed jalapenos, a chef salad with ranch dressing, onion rings, french fries, a cheeseburger, two fried chicken breasts, barbecue pork rolls, an omelet, milk and orange juice. I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I do believe in not being a hypocrite. Is that really how justice works?

Before I go I’ll leave you with my favorite read. An inmate named Monty Delk, who murdered a man after going to his house under the pretense of buying his car. “Monty Delk was one of death row’s most notorious inmates. Prison officials said that he showered without removing his coveralls or using soap, and that his personal odor was so offensive, he had to be segregated from the other inmates so as to avoid making them ill. In interviews, he claimed to be over 129 years old, having previously been a district judge and a submarine commander.” His last words, among a string of profanities were, “I am the warden! Get your warden off this gurney and shut up! You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this.”

If you have a few free minutes, aren’t alone in your scary apartment, and have an odd fascination with death and capital punishment I really recommend checking this shit out.

A few weeks ago at work I came back to my computer to find someone had google searched “hot air balloons.” I found this odd, but I ignored it and went about my day. A few hours later I returned to my computer to find the same search. That’s when I asked, “Who searched hot air balloons on my computer?” No one confessed, so slightly confused, I again went about my day. Since then it’s happened almost every day consistently. I’ll come back to my computer after lunch, or a bathroom break or a meeting, to find someone has googled “hot air balloons.” Not even image searched, just a regular search.

I think the growing flustered and frantic reactions to this mystery has only fueled the fire. Now I believe there to be somewhat of a conspiracy going on. Where once it was just one odd (yet clever) individual, now it seems to be a whole slew of people who are out to get me.

I think one of the main reasons this is so upsetting to me is because I really wish I had thought of it. It’s so subtle, so infuriating, so genius. I hate being the victim of a prank I want to be playing. This video posted to Vimeo today shows how this prank is escalating. Twice today hot air balloons have become the background of my computer.

So Mystery Hot Air Balloon Googler, whoever you are, good work. I hate you. But good work.

If you’re at my website right now instead of reading this post in your dashboard you’ll notice I’m using a new theme, slightly customized with help from Amir Cohen. I mostly decided to change things up because I think this theme is more conducive to text posts- as demonstrated by Patrick Cassels- and I want to start writing more.

I’m going to try to take a page out of my mom’s handbook and really put some more thought and effort into posts rather than tumbling photos and re-blogging my friends (although I’m sure that will sneak through from time to time.)

Well, anyways, that’s it. Talk to you soon, new blog!

Wall-E was awesome.