When I moved to Toronto I took a computer monitor with me, and it was an CRT that I'd already had for a few years already. This was this was the monitor I used when I applied to grad school and the monitor I used when starting Dinosaur Comics.

This monitor had served me well, but the past year or so it was clearly dying. The display would get fuzzy, and then snap back. Now I use three monitors and this was on the screen I used mainly for status stuff, so it was okay. I could still read the text when I needed to!

It was getting old though, and this morning I actually thought I was watching it finally die: the screen slowly faded to black, over the course of about 30 seconds, like a movie would fade to black over a particularly dramatic coda. These were my thoughts as I watched my windows fade away. Even the little green power light on the front of the monitor faded with everything else. My old monitor faded to black I watched it die. Goodbye, faithful hardware!

BUT THEN it faded back! You guys, it faded back just as it had faded out. It was a death-bed deke, and I was totally taken in. The monitor did this cycle a few more times, but I was wise to it now. I wasn't going to be taken in again. Eventually the monitor stopped fading out entirely, and we both got back to what we were working on before.

That was this morning. Just now, it faded to black and hasn't recovered. The power light has died with the screen too, but its switch is still in the "on" position. Okay, so just now I turned the power off and on again and the monitor recovered perfectly fine. MAN I GOT DEKED AGAIN.

Okay, so clearly this monitor is sick but doesn't want to die; it wants a peek at its obituary before it goes. Well here you go, monitor, I've moved this window over to you and I'm writing this on you and this is your obituary. If you do anything awesome after I post this I'll update it appropriately, but I think this is where our two paths diverge. You have been a good and faithful monitor and I will probably not forgot many of the things I saw through you.

You were a good monitor!

Comic-Con is bearing down fast. Faster than I am comfortable with.

Tomorrow will be the first of four appearances that I'll be doing this summer for the local Indigo bookstore branches, as part of their Summer Reading series. Since this is (kind of?) a new thing for them, I'm a little apprehensive that it'll be one of those things where I'll be talking to an audience of just a couple of people. But in the long term, we're all hoping this will pay off, once word gets out that Indigo is doing Good Things for the younger readers. So, um, yeah. Come check it out, if you have an afternoon to spare.

Caught the "tail" end of this little drama on the bike path today. Twilight may be a shitty book but it's a great time to watch animals!

Between drinking beer and wine and eating beef we watched The Hangover last night and it was awesome. Go see it everyone.

I am trying to think of what to draw for the 4th.

Anyone bored enough to code this into a live minisite this weekend?

I am trying to doodle maybe even draw?

Missed out on this from a couple of weeks ago: John Hodgman grilling President Obama on his nerd credentials at the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner.

So, things are pretty good. And I'm still on Eastern time, so this is LJ entry hour!



The road trip was a great success. I can't fully chronicle it (I'll do so later in pictures) but here are a few high(and low)lights:

Great & Amazing:

-Chicago and M. Henry - The drive through Chicago was beautiful - something I hadn't even planned for - and while we didn't get to stay long, the breakfast at M. Henry was worth a city visit alone. I had a heavenly egg sandwich and Jackie had some of the most rich, delicious pancakes we've ever tasted. M. Henry is required eating next time I'm in the city. (though I should probably see more of it, too)

-Yellowstone Park - Just enthralling. I've never been to a tourist attraction where the tourist is so thoroughly left to their own devices. You can hole up in lodges and be near fat civilization at Yellowstone. Or, you can die at Yellowstone - in thousands of horrifying ways. Something about that really inspires an admiration and respect of nature in me. (it's probably the fear.) I'd go back, as a better-informed camper, and be a little bit more hardcore about it. (but not too hardcore.)

Oh right, and there are 4 kinds of tourists at Yellowstone. Insane photographers, fat families, hardcore campers, and us. At one point we said Hi to some people our own age and got really excited. I think they got excited too.

-The Spam Museum - A big surprise to us as well! The Spam Museum is located in Austin, MN next to Hornel Foods' big old grocery HQ, and is free to enter. A lot of old people work there, as (we noticed) they do at all tourist attractions. You're basically going to a giant ad for Spam, but it's a really well designed ad for Spam. Adorable and informative. And they gave us Spams on a pretzel skewer. Also, Jay Johnston from Mr. Show did an interactive Spam quiz video for kids, which was weird!

-Bob's - Just the most awesome tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Sioux Falls, SD. We read about it in Road Food and went there for broasted chicken. The staff was so incredibly nice and we talked for a long time. They had us sign their extensive guest book from visitors all over the world. The owner even signed my Road Food book, haha. But best of all of course was the chicken, which I can still taste.

-Coeur D'Alene, ID - What an adorable town. I'm glad we made a point to stop here! Had some wonderful burgers from Hudson's, picked up some coffee and smoothies at Java on Sherman, and ate by the water while a sweet golden retriever played water-fetch with his lady. I want a dog so, so bad.

-The View Through Oregon - Seriously, wow. We drove along the water and it was gorgeous.


Lame Shit:

-Niagara Falls - Seriously, fuck Niagara Falls. Boring, overpriced, moneysucking shit. Yellowstone had a waterfall that was 3x as intense.

-Cody, Wyoming - Idiotic tourist town outside of Yellowstone that probably was cute and historic at one point, but is totally pointless now. Expensive and designed to disorient you into spending lots of money.

-Mount Rushmore - Not really that lame, but it wasn't particularly fun. Rapid City is a hole of artificial tourism stupidity. Looking at the mountain was pretty cool but we had to drive through 2 horrible tourism towns and pay $10 just to park there. A lot of tourist spots are for idiots. The idiots being us.

-Guest House Inn & Suites - I guess you get what you pay for, but this hotel was particularly lame. Maybe other locations are better, I don't know. But between confusing check-in, obnoxious guests and a breakfast that left me siiiick, I will probably avoid from now on.


Not Fun, But Notable:

-Michael Jackson - Jackie and I were really sad when we got a text about this on the road. We made a few sad phonecalls and tuned into sad radio stations where the DJs were actually crying. Then we listened to MJ tunes for a few hours. I'm sort of glad we could mourn MJ without the internet, which was impossible to look at that day.


I'm sure more memories will come to me as the week progresses, but those are the interesting ones for now. My pictures will tell a lot of stories as well. BTW, that photo above is an unedited snapshot from the car! South Dakota really looks like that.

I have 7 new paintings in a group show in San Francisco tonight. Check it check it out.

What's been going on with me lately:

- Looks like Jellaby will be seeing print in Italy! No real information beyond that at the moment, other than it'll be both volumes that will be translated.

- Beach volleyball has started up once again in earnest. Unfortunately, we've been rained out far too many times this summer already, and my vball partner's schedule doesn't really sync up well with anyone else's, so it's been hard getting back into it. Had an embarrassing incident with someone else's suntan spray that currently has me looking like someone with a freak skin disease.

- Greatly enjoyed the Ghostbusters Video Game, even despite the significant dropoff in quality for the final three chapters (not having the finale take place in a recognizable NYC setting was a bit of a misstep, in my opinion -- half the charm of the series was always having the supernatural setting grounded in the real world).

- Naseem's bossy friends arrived, and they are utterly charming and adorable.

- Tonight we are going to eat at some sort of "underground," possibly privately-run "restaurant." The location and the exact details have all been very secretive so far, so I have no idea whether it's going to be a Fine Dining experience, or if it'll be more along the lines of eating Chef Boyardee out of a can in some dude's sketch basement (although I strongly suspect the latter rather than the former).