I am off today.

I’d forgotten that I was off until around Tuesday I think, so this is almost like a bonus vacation day. But considering I worked late the back half of the week anyway, I think it’s good I’m off because I feel like crap from being so exhausted.

Anyway, JessieDog and I are sofa-surfin’. It’s cold and grey out (very September) and I’ve got lots of chore-like things I should get done before Nighthawk gets out of work in a few hours. I’m also thinking of working on the comic and/or the website (actually the site’s got more of my attention because I have comics for tomorrow and and Tuesday in the queue already — leftovers from vacation) and I haven’t played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in like a week and I want to get back to it.

So I’ve got a 4 day vacation going with the first one all to myself and it’s pretty cool. I’ll be checking the forum most of the weekend if you feel like stopping by.

Been doing this half my life

fun with power plants


JPGs do awful things to my art, especially when I insist on keeping the graphics under 100k. Here is a larger (300+k, dial-up-painful) version.

This image was so big when I was working on it that I couldn’t save it because I ran out of room on my scratch disk. I’ve got a print-quality version – might make a print out of it just so I can hang it up somewhere. Drop me a note if you’re interested in one as well.

Hundreds of thousands flee Northeast floods (but I’m not one of them)

Because some have asked, yes, we do live less than a mile from the Schuylkill River (pronounced skooo-kill, for the uninitiated, skookl for the natives) but despite the fact that most national news agencies make it look like all of Pennsylvania is now a big rapidly-moving lake, the river is a mile down a really big hill from me.

I am not, in fact, underwater. The worst I’ve had to deal with is nastier-than-expected traffic on the highways. And I’m equal-parts thankful of that fact and hoping for the best for those who are being impacted much more severely.

In other news

We figured out what was wrong with the home phone – the plug had somehow disconnected itself from the wall. The difference between Thursday (when I worked) and yesterday (when I was off) was actually having the time to check the wall plug. (And even then I take too much credit – Nighthawk found and corrected the problem.)

Comics are queued up through May 9, which means I can concentrate on other projects for about a week before I dive back into that. I have a good comfortable 5-strip buffer right now and I want to maintain at least that. If somehow I can write another 5 strips next weekend we’ll really be cooking with gas.

The Phils were rained out and the Flyers lost. The crowd in the Buffalo Sabres arena won no bonus points with me by getting all ramped up and cheering when we had a man down on the ice. If Philly fans did that, it’d be all over the sports newswire tomorrow – I hope ESPN and the like play fair and point out Buffalo’s behavior as well.

We’re supposed to get thunderstorms tomorrow (er, today). I like that.

I’ve reached the point of tired where my fingers look fascinating. In fact, they feel kind of numb. Maybe a marathon comic session wasn’t the best of plans.

Is it deja vu if you don’t remember it?

It’s April, and we’re having one hell of a thunderstorm outside. Odd.

Even odder is the deja vu. I’m sitting on the sofa knitting a blanket as a gift for some friends. (The blanket, by the way, is responsible for the lack of comic tomorrow. I’m trying to finish the blanket before they finish the baby.)

I don’t have a visual memory stored of my grandmother knitting, but we lived with her until I was 11, so I’m sure I saw her do so at some point. She’s the reason I wanted to learn to knit. Somehow I feel closer to her when I’m working with my hands. And she was an avid storm watcher, sitting on the porch watching the lightening and listening to the thunder.

So I’m sitting on the sofa watching the storm through our sliding doors, knitting, and thinking of her. I feel like I’ve been here before – or maybe it’s just that I feel like I’ve come home.