8.25.03 The bugs have finally gotten past my Skin So Soft Bug Repellant. It's official. It may be near the end of the summer, but I am definitely not in the clear. I have so many ugly, huge bites on me it reminds me strongly of when I got hives. I even bought a little fun stick that you wipe on the bites to make them stop being itchy. TO NO AVAIL. This is one of the reasons I hate summer. Another is the endless stream of hornets that plague my parents pool. They make it impossible for me to walk around with dignity on the deck. Any steps I take always end in me screaming and either throwing myself into the pool or the house. Bees, hornets, wasps, and any manner of stinging bugs rob me of my dignity. Bring on the fall already. . . . Other news! I got my stickers in today, much to my huge surprise, and postcards are soon to follow. So thankfully I will have something to hand out to any suckers that wander by my table. And I'm trying to think up a mini-comic idea while listening to Junior Senior. One productive thing I did do this weekend (besides seeing Pirates of the Caribbean again--yow!) was reconnecting with an old friend. Priceless!

8.19.03 Ugh I am hauling ass and everything else in order to get stuff ready for SPX. I had no idea how impossible it was to order stickers. It takes an awful lot of moola to print stuff, so people sure better take my free hand-outs at the convention! Or there'll be trouble!! . . . . Well since I have no new comic to upload, since I'm uber-stressing about other things, I'll share how my vacations went:

San Diego

• Caught "Agent Cody Banks" on the flight there. Surprisingly a large number of recognizable actors in it, including Arnold "The Mummy" Vosloo and Keith "I hate Rent-A-Cops" David.
• I found San Diego to have ideal breezy, semi-overcast weather.
• I asked a Starbucks employee how she guessed my name, when she said, "Here's your Mocha, Monica", only to realize later I was wearing a nametag.
• I caught several wonderful lectures by folks at ILM, gaming companies, Pixar, Weta Digital, etc.
• I saw way too many exact doubles of my brother Sean.
• I caught a great lecture on the importance of attention and distraction (it ended with the class watching a video and focusing our attention so severely we didn't notice a man in a gorilla suit dancing).
• I played several volleyball games with hot Australian and French Canadian men.
• I witnessed a horrible "Cyber Fashion Show" straight out of a Christopher Guest movie.
• I became re-inspired to try my hand at independent animation production again.
• I drank a Watermelon Cooler at a bar once visited by the Rat Pack.
• I fell asleep during some of the best animations I've ever seen.
• Half of my bagel stuck in an automated toaster and disappeared, which prompted a guy to ask me if I really had two sides in the first place. Er . . . it's a pair . . .
• Ate at the In-N-Out Burger, in tribute to The Big Lebowski.
• Realized on the way home that some airlines not only made you pay for food and a movie, but the movie was edited as well. Blasphemy.
• A guy approached me in Baggage Claim and tried to tell me in a non-threatening way that I had a great complexion.

Michigan

• I found out my grandmother, thankfully, is still as wiry as ever.
• The weather in Michigan was also breezy and beautiful. Everywhere but Maryland.
• I came to the conclusion I couldn't read a book on the hammock without instantly passing out.
• I had several horrid spider encounters.
• My uncles are wake-boarding maniacs, and do tricks none of my cousins can.
• All of my cousins are taller than me now.
• There was an eerily small amount of mosquitos.
• At night the lake became glass and the only sounds were of bonfires up and down the docks.
• Quicksand does exist, and although this time it merely slowed our boat down, last time it almost sucked up my dad.
• Two tree limbs fell down, wrecking havoc.
• Jeff Daniels owns a theatre in the city that makes Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix.
• One night I heard a car tear by with a girl screaming bloody murder the whole way. When I worriedly told my cousin Kelly, she assured me kidnappers probably wouldn't have let their victim scream that long.
• I'm too young to drive a jetski without a boating license, I have to be 24. But if I was 12 and had a license, I totally could. Logic . . . ?
• I ate various forms of pizza every night.
• The coffee maker took an hour to percolate, at least.

So there you have it. My trips in a nutshell. Hopefully comic soon.

8.12.03 At long last, I'm back! With an update! I drew another page while I was on vacation also, so I'll have to color & upload that soon. Many things to tell about my two trips, but since I just spent the last hour rearranging files that somehow got messed up, I won't go into it now. But for those of you who actually care, expect a detailed account soon!