So I found out why I get so many people coming here looking for sandwich shops. It turns out that The Sandwich Shop Ninja is currently the second result when you search for "sandwich shop" on Google. I guess Google thinks animated ninjas who happen to own sandwich shops are more relevant to people looking for sandwich shops, maybe to eat at, than Subway and a dozen more actual, real sandwich shops?

So if you came here looking for a place to eat, uh... sorry? I don't even have any ninja sandwich recipes or anything, but I guess I could list a few sandwiches I like at various places:

• Quiznos - Baja Chicken
• Togos - Chipotle Roast Beef
• Subway's a little different. I don't get any particular sandwich. I get a ham and bacon with pepper-jack cheese and cucumber. Lettuce is pointless on any sandwich, as it's basically just a solid green form of water. Unless it's spring mix or Romain lettuce, then it actually tastes like something besides water.

Don't buy those sandwiches on the Amtrak trains. They're way overpriced, and taste disgusting.

Still making progress on my game project. The graphics are turning out nicely, though what you see is scaled down to about 75% so that it will fit in this little box thing. Drawing all those trees and grass is surprisingly time-consuming, though. It's definitely easier to draw them from a side-on perspective rather than a top-down.

Next week is the San Diego Comic-Con. This will be the second time I've gone. I leave early Thursday morning for an 11-hour drive, check in to the hotel, and hopefully get on the tram going towards the convention center and not the one that's going to the Mexico border.

Last month's search engine queries were unfortunately more of the same, for the most part. Just lost people looking for sandwitches, sandwishes, and a "ninjasandwich" stood out from the countless people on the search for sub shop designs.

And here are the weird search engine queries from February:

• "number one thing that makes a sandwich shop fail" - It is a statistically provable fact that all failed sandwich shops did not have a ninja employed at the time of failing.
• "have you seen a ninja sandwich" - Here's a hint: if you start choking while eating a sandwich, it is possible that you are eating a "ninja sandwich." However, most sandwiches lack the physical and mental capacities, let alone a long enough lifespan, to train to be a ninja. Also, a sandwich-related death could be a result of the well-known Ninja bacteria known as "Salmonella," rather than the sandwich itself.
• "sandwich shop captain pirate" - This will also make your sandwich shop fail.

It's been a while since I've listed any of the weird ones I've gotten. Here are the best for December and January:

• "Sketches of commandos"
• "ninja shirt turtle"
• "desktop background sandwich"
• About 19 different variations on "how to start a sandwich shop." I wonder why...

...and I can already tell that February is going to be an interesting month. All this, combined with the strange group of advertisers in those boxes lately, makes me think I may need to re-evaluate who I think my target audience is. Jewelry and beads? On a site about animation and ninjas? There was even an ad for some online occult surplus store a few days ago. Yes, I'm serious.

So, you want to start your own sandwich shop? Well, you've certainly come to the right place. Maybe. I don't know. You're the one thinking "Oh, hey, I want to know how to start a sandwich shop! This place titled 'The Sandwich Shop Ninja' might be a good place to look! Surely this is the best and most relevant source of information," not me.

Anyways, this is the best and most relevant source of information on starting a sandwich shop. The best one in the world. There are many things you will want to think about as you design and start up your very own sandwich shop. Some things are important to think about, some crucial, some vital, and some will leave you bleeding in a dark alley in Chicago if you don't think as carefully as necessary so you'd better think very, very, very, very carefully about everything here. You don't like bleeding, do you? Exactly.

Location

The first thing to do is rent, buy, or get a lease on a location. Location is everything, except for the things that it is not. There are good locations, and then there are bad locations. Here are a few examples of good and bad locations:

• The corner of two busy streets - Good location. Busy streets mean many customers.
• The mall's food court - Good location. Malls are always full of potential customers. Even during a zombie apocalypse, be it the survivors hiding in the mall, or the zombies that come in when some fool thinks its safe to go outside. Zombies love sandwiches. Brain sandwiches.
• The bad part of town - Good location. Thugs, gangsters, mafia hit-men, mimes, and other various no-good-doers all love sandwiches.
• The moon - good location. It is a known fact that astronauts enjoy eating delicious sandwiches.
• Just Down the Street and Around the Corner - the ultimate location. Anyone can find this place from anywhere. If someone gives you the greatest sandwich of your life and you ask him where he got it, odd are he will say "just down the street and around the corner." You will follow his directions, and you will find it. Every single time.

Employees

After you have chosen a location, you will need to hire employees.

Most restaurants will do good to hire a ninja, and only one ninja. Although it would seem otherwise, efficiency and productivity decrease as the number of ninjas are severely decreased due to what is known as the Exponential Ninja Factor (ENF). If you manage to perpetuate a rivalry between the two, you may be able to avoid any ENF impacts; however, unless both ninjas are evenly equipped and skilled, you run risks of loosing an employee. Contracts with ninjas must be considered carefully. A ninja will hold his or her end of the contract with the utmost honor, even to the extent of loss of life. In fact, it is unknown if any ninja has ever survived a breach of contract. It is also important to take note that the same holds true for employers of ninjas: statistics show that out of all employers who had failed to hold their end of a contract with a ninja, 100% had met an untimely demise.
While one ninja can handle most of the workload, you will still need additional employees. Once you have hired a ninja, you will need to acquire a Ninja Ally Compatibility Table. Certain types of employees can cause disastrous results when mixed with ninjas. The NACT tends to vary between ninja clans and families, though there are a few incompatible types that are common between all. Namely: dark wizards, zombies, Michael Dudikoff, and pirates. They all mix badly with ninjas, but pirates most of all. Your sandwich shop will have a severe impact on the neighborhood's levels of swashbuckling and scurvy epidemics.

After procuring your NACT, there are a few area-specific positions you will want to have filled. Most cases deal with areas that contain larger demographics of unruly people. If you are located in one of these areas (ie: "Bad Part of Town" location), you may want to hire a polar bouncer. Nobody messes with a bouncer who is also a polar bear.

The Other Stuff

Then after you do some other stuff and get customers and all, you reap the rewards of capitalism. Congratulations, you have successfully gone from "sticking it to the man" to "the man it is being stuck to." Don't ask what "it" is. You don't want to know. Or maybe you should, since you'd have already stuck some of it.

Recap

In conclusion, the steps to sandwich shop success are:
[ol]

Thank you for reading, and join us later on for "Extra-Extra-Extra-Extra-Large Tee Shirts" and "Endangered Species: The Oboe Cat."

I guess the least I can do is upload a few sketches on occasion. I have to get my portfolio presentable for my application to get into the animation program before the 1st of April. The competition is intense, as there are, on average, 200 people applying for a program that only accepts 25 each year.

Best search engine queries of Feburary:

• futuristic things - I keep getting this one at least once every few months. Clearly this site needs more futuristic things, and that will be resolved some time in the future.
• games you step on - what?

I found an interesting competition running on one of the sites I check out every now and then. Basically you take a random name from a generator and create a game based on that. There are no prizes, but seeing the wacky ideas and concepts that everyone comes up with is worth it. I got the randomized video game title "Galactic Kangaroo Fiasco." I'm not sure how far I'll get in programming this before the competition is over, but I'll probably work on it off-and-on throughout the year. The world will see the Galactic Kangaroo Fiasco and learn to fear the creatures of down under. Even when I get free time, the next episode of The Sandwich Shop Ninja will have a higher priority. I seriously need to get that thing done. Here's a brief story concept:

"You return to your home planet Austrialeraan of the Down Underian System for a barbie with your mates, only to find your home planet in ruins! Mad as a cut snake, you grab your trusty boomer- ang, head out of your ship, and begin your search for the fruit loop responsible. You gaze into the great expanse of the outback and pause as a mob of roo's stare right back at you. They know something you don't..."

Another month has gone by, and I have collected a few more search engine queries that people have entered and somehow referred to my website.

• down to the village with a boomstick in his hand - I know what this would link to, but why would anyone search for this?
• How to design a sandwich shop - This is a good question. How would one go about designing a sandwich shop? Fortunately for that one random person, I can help! The first thing you want to do is find a good available location to start up. The next thing would be supplies. These would be as many sharp utensils you can find. You will need a variety of knives for cutting meat, vegetables, bread, pirates, and other things. You will also want to hire employees. You should only need one ninja. Hiring more than one is usually to your disadvantage as if they work together the "inverse ninja law" comes into effect, decreasing productive output. One way of countering this is to create a rivalry between multiple ninjas, though you may have to hire often as this may end in bloody results. It is also a bad idea to offend the ninja workers union. Any affiliation with pirates will terminate any contracts or agreements that you have made with any hired ninjas along with your life. In conclusion, we have the following steps to success: [ol]
Lease store location.
• Hire a ninja.
• ????
• Profit.
[/ol] ...and there we have it, "how to design a sandwich shop!" Join us next time for "Common Mixups: Mustard Sauce and Mustard Gas!"

Work on the next episode of The Sandwich Shop Ninja has been very slow. I've been spending most of my time between classes doing reading for those classes. This week I get to read a 300 page book for History, to an essay on it, and read a chapter out of two different text books for the same class! Yay! I haven't checked the syllabuses for my other classes yet, but I imagine I have reading from their respective textbooks as well. Just like last week.

This will be my last post of 2007. My next post will be some time in January, when I get moved into the dorms at BYU.

Search engine string on the month: "futuristic stuff." Similar to futuristic things and futuristic items.

The power adapter's been repaired, and I'm currently working on a piece for a Halloween-themed animation competition. Hopefully I can get it done. There's still a lot to do this next week.

I've gotten some interesting keywords that refer to my website. Sometimes I'm not sure what these people are actually looking for, but I'll comment on a few:

• mp3 player with am radio - Good luck, it's hard finding one of these with FM radio, let alone AM. If you're high-tech enough for an mp3 player, what do you want with AM radio, anyways? Do you want to connect rabbit-ear antennae to your high-definition television, too?
• ninja no yes shirt - What? Make up your mind! Do you want a shirt, or not? Are you looking for a ninja's opinion on shirts? Whether or not ninjas wear shirts? Do you not want ninjas, but you do want shirts? Person no yes find what they were looking for?
• tablet functionality stops working - I can relate.
• t-shirt sub shop - Those mist be some fibrous sub sandwiches.
• sandwich shop - If the first result for sandwich shop on Google ever refers to The Sandwich Shop Ninja, that would be awesome. Oddly enough, it's already floating around the second page.
• pirates and sociology - Hahahahaha. Wow. This makes me want to finish that sociology animation just to see what wacky things Google chooses to refer people here for. Then we can all learn about the social nature of pirates and ninjas, and the mor(t)al conflicts that arise between the two.

That's all for now, hopefully some more strange and bizarre search keywords will pop up for next month!