Good morning!

Whaaaaasup? I’m loving the new Cintiq – especially since I can see what I’m drawing. It really makes a difference. It’s also making my left arm numb. I’m hoping I can correct the way I have everything set up so that won’t happen – because I’m not giving it up!!!! haha! Have a great day!

I made an announcement about new contests – including a jingle. Well Todd McElmurry has laid down the gauntlet with this a capella homage to Super Stickman.
Todd McElmurry Sings Super. Of course there’s The Beat 105.5 FMs Promo with Rick the Stick that we did with 105.5 the Beat out of Ft. Myers, FL.

*Warning. Clicking on those audio links won’t have the embedded audio I was hoping to feature here. So until I figure that out, it may open in your iTunes or other player on your computer.

Looks like I better come up with this contest STAT!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

‘Be A Star’ Contest:

You can become a guest star in a Rick the Stick comic! That’s right, the winner of this contest will be caricatured by me and you’ll be strategically placed into a starring role in a comic. Towards the end of the year, all the guest star winners will be in a drawing to have their character reintroduced for an entire week! The contest dates and requirements will be announced shortly.

Dingle Dangle Rick needs a Jingle Jangle:

This one is tricky, because I threw out a side note one day and Über stickfan Todd put together a pretty solid jingle. Now I’m opening it up to the masses. Let’s see if we get interest from any other talented people out there. It doesn’t have to be professional (like this) but it should include stuff about our main man Rick. The prize will be an original sketch and a copy of the upcoming and still untitled book ‘Rick the Stick: Volume II’. Volume II will feature over 200 comics picking up where – well, you guessed it – Volume I left off.

This is a pre-announcement so some of the prizes, dates and particulars may change, but I wanted to put it out there. If you have ideas for contests or prizes, feel free to leave them. I’m willing to work for your participation!!

Good morning!

Looks like my dog is gonna need knee surgery – she may have torn the ligaments. I take her back in today for xrays. The cost hurts, but more importantly she needs to get back to feeling well again. It’s weird, we have two dogs. The male has always had problems with his health and she’s been great. But she was chasing a squirrel and blammo! If I find that squirrel, I’m gonna hand him the bill!

Anywho, hope your week is off to a great start and you’re enjoying the strips!

As always, thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Good morning!

Hope you had a great weekend! I took the day off today to bring my dog to the vet. She’s having a problem with one of her legs.

That being said, after I make sure dog2 is taken care of I’m probably going to stream sometime today. With the new Cintiq. If you’re up for it, I’ll be posting Twitter and FB when I’m about to go live.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

And now Todd’s thoughts:

When I was a kid there was a wonderful book that was still pretty new in our Library that all us kids just had to read, because of the title alone, “How to Eat Fried Worms”.  Many of you know this story and the many different ways that worms were consumed throughout this tale.   Well being a boy, and knowing that this type of activities were sure to disgust the girls we set about on our own worm hunt to munch us a few invertebrates.

Well we thought practice would be the best way to prepare to eat worms in front of the girls at school and get them totally grossed out.  Well Practice is where we had our first and last bite of a worm.   They aren’t totally gross, sort of tasteless at first but then when you start to chew that’s when the real issue begins.  Firstly these little critters are a bit spongy, they don’t chew easily and secondly they eat dirt and poop dirt so the only real taste you get is mud.   As you chew you realize something as well, no matter how strong willed you are there is a natural gag reflex that tells your body not to consume such a thing, sort of like eating a minnow or goldfish, you have to force your body to consume it, and that often means skipping the chewing process and go directly for the forced swallow.

So Rick, and all you other folks out there just wondering what a worm could possibly taste like, it’s not like other strange foods that resemble chicken, it’s tasteless for the most part, but mainly has a twinge of mud flavor.   For you kiddo’s out there contemplating consuming a worm for the giggles, or just for the gross factor I advise you to choose small, and just swallow it on down.   If you are put in the position as Billy in “How to Eat Fried Worms” concede to the challenge and just go to school with worms in your pants, you’ll live that one down a lot quicker than if you were to actually consume a worm in front of your friends.

Good Friday morning!

Whew – a nice week in the books! Hopefully yours was good. I’m also hoping next week will bring fruitful results from the new Cintiq. I’m hoping to give a review early in the week.

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Good morning!

Looks like Rick just doesn’t get that pirating is bad. Since I give content away for free you’d think that if you used the comic on another site you wouldn’t need my permission or I wouldn’t care – right? Nope, especially if the comic wasn’t credited. Ugh. That’s a can of worms best opened earlier in the week! Worms – chicken – back to Rick!!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

Good morning!

Hope your week is rocking! I’m waiting patiently for my Cintiq (no I’m not).

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken

And now Todd’s thoughts:

Hey Rick, don’t worry too much about them worms, Chickens are actually just lucky enough to find them, they (the chickens) are not very smart animals, thank goodness they taste good otherwise what a waste.  Not to mention if that worm can at least get half of itself away from that chicken it’ll live on to be eaten another day.  Maybe one day the worms will unite and rise up against the foul that have kept them living in fear.

Back in High School during my summers I switched between working on an Ostrich Ranch and working for Bo Pilgrim at some of his chicken houses collecting eggs and sorting them.  Let me tell ya, when it comes to birds no matter the size they are all a bit pea brained and better on your plate than alive.

I’ll get into the Ostrich Ranch story another day, but here’s a teaser.  I got kicked, pecked, and eventually let go due to drugs…not mine, but the owners.  OK, on to the chicken house stories.

These houses are about 120 yards long and about 40 to 60 feet wide, with plats (Pallets connected end to end the length of the house, 2 runs on each side) that run the length of the houses with hanging water troughs down the middle ever so often, and nests propped up on either side for the chickens to lay their eggs in.  The nests dump out onto a conveyor belt that is hidden underneath, and allows for you to stand in a room at the end of the house, turn on the belt and just wait for the eggs to come to ya.   Sounds easy enough, and it would be if chickens had any intelligence.   Since they don’t, about every hour I’d have to walk the plats and collect the eggs that the chickens laid just any where they could, as well as clean out the water troughs cause evidently these birds heard a rumor about indoor pluming and figured that their water troughs are were they were suppose to do their business.

The hunt for the eggs was like easter every hour, you’d find them on top of the hutch that their nests are in, in the middle of the floor amongst all the other chickens, even in their water troughs.   As you walked you’d also have to look for ill or dead birds, cause for some reason if another chicken becomes ill or dies the remaining chickens think it’s their job to peck it to pieces…literally to pieces.  This was a regular day to day thing, and every hour the egg hunts were on.

We would put food in the same location each time, and there would still be chickens that spent their day in day out routine scratching around at the ground.  So we’d have to move the food dispensers ever so many hours just so they would eat, cause once it was emptied and they moved on half of them would never return to the food dispenser again, so we’d have to fill it and take it to them.

So the next time you feel bad about eating poultry of any kind, just remember that you’re doing this bird a favor by eating it.

Good morning!

Okay, it’s official. Rick is a carnivore! Personally, most of my life, I’ve been a meat and potatoes type of guy – and pasta. But over the last few years I’ve broadened my tastes to include Salmon and tofu among other tasty staples. If you want a kick-arse Salmon recipe, here it is. You can also check it out over at TGT Webcomics where Kurt’s got a bunch of other recipes from other artists as well. Speaking of TGT, I tweaked the site design recently.

Grilled Jammin’ Salmon

Ingredients:
1-1.5 lb. of Salmon
1/2 cup light brown sugar*
1/2 cup lite soy sauce
1 tbs lime juice
1 tsp ground ginger (bottled – not spice)
8-10 count bourbon*

Marinating:
Pour everything but the Salmon into a gallon sized storage zip-loc bag**. Seal the bag and shake mixing ingredients well. Rinse Salmon before putting into the bag with other ingredients. It’s best to let marinate skin side up for at least two hours. I’ve let mine marinate for over 24 hours and I’ve also thrown it right on the grill. For a deeper flavor, let it marinate longer. Leaving the skin on is great for keeping it from burning. Plus, if you’ve cooked it long enough, the skin slides right off.

Cooking Prep:
The secret to a great grilled salmon is using a light foil pan lined with a sheet of tin foil. If you don’t have or don’t want to buy a foil pan, you can make one out of doubling up the tin foil. I find the pans work out well because you want to keep the syrupy sauce to top off the Salmon and just tin foil usually has a way of making a mess.

Grilling:
1) Set grill to medium high. Once hot, pour Salmon and sauce into foil pans and place in the center of the grill.
2) Cook for 20-25 minutes.
3) I usually like to check about 10-15 minutes in to see how it’s going which can vary depending on the heat of your grill.
4) If the sauce is boiling, turn down the heat just a bit. You can also use that opportunity to turn the pan 180º to even out the cooking.
5) The Salmon is done when it’s a darker pink and flaky.
6) Occasionally, I’ve burned the sauce, don’t worry – it happens, usually the skin protects the salmon from getting too bad. If you didn’t burn the sauce, it should have a syrupy texture and goes great drizzled over the salmon.

Eating:
I usually serve with wild rice and steamed broccoli. Very healthy and a great dinner. Enjoy!

NOTES:
* I will heap the 1/2 cup of brown sugar based on the weight of the Salmon. For example, if it’s closer to 1.5 lbs, I use a large heaping cup. If it’s closer to 1 lb., it’s usually leveled off. The same goes for the bourbon. The heaver the fish, the higher the count. The other ingredients remain the same despite the weight.
** You can use the storage bag or a pan. Either way is fine. I like the bag because storage and clean-up is easier.

Enjoy!

Thanks for dropping by!
Ken