So I kinda wrestled with this a little bit, but I think I've figured out the best way to handle this whole dilly-o.

See, here at Real Life, for the past 4 years, round about this time, things start getting tight for us - not to mention that we've had to cover a couple of surprise moves now. So we started an annual Christmas Card drive to help raise some funds to enable us to get our sorry asses where we needed to be.

Only... this year, we've got the RLSG now. It's a great way for readers to get bonus content, but it pretty much fills the "additional income" hole we usually hit, and has kind of made the drive unnecessary. (Well, not ENTIRELY unnecessary... we're planning to move next week and don't have the funds we need to reserve the truck, etc... but we'll manage)

The thing is, I like doing the Christmas Cards. It's fun. And it gives you guys something back in the process, something from me. And hell - maybe this'll be the year I finally get them to you BEFORE Christmas! It could happen! Don't laugh!

Anyway, what I worked out is this... Anyone who is subscribed to the $15/month RLSG subscription will automatically get a Christmas Card. Period. No need to send anything additional, no need for some crazy donation drive... just sign up for the RLSG and you'll get a card in the mail sometime in mid-December. I'll even sign it to you.

If you want a card but don't feel like signing up for the RLSG... no worries. Because in addition to helping support my sorry butt, I'd really like to encourage you guys to support a charity this year. That said, I've chosen to support Child's Play this holiday season. Mike and Jerry have set up a great charity, and it would make me feel REALLY good if we as a group of readers were able to send some much-needed money their way. That said, I need some way of tracking donations so I can send out the cards.

SO, from now until December 10th, anyone who sends a $15 donation using our little "not hungry, just broke" button at the top of the page there will receive a Christmas Card in the mail (REMEMBER TO INCLUDE YOUR ADDRESS!) and 100% of the donated funds will be used to purchase items for the Oakland Children's Hospital from their Child's Play Wish List in the name of "The Readers of Real Life Comics". I thought about just sending a check, but I thought this was the best way to ensure the kids at the OCH are getting these items directly. You CAN send less than $15 towards this, of course... I'll be putting any donations received towards Child's Play... you just only get a card if the donation is over $15.

Anyway, that's just my thought on the matter. Two ways of getting a Christmas Card this year, and no need for some kind of multi-tiered drive. Thanks again, Lifers!

Yes, it's that time of year again... the time when Greg and Liz pack up the covered wagon and make their nomadic trek to a new home. One of these days we really just need to invest in a good Yurt and make it easy on ourselves. Though I don't know if broadband is widely accessible in a Yurt. Hmm.

ANYHOW, since this week is going to be freaking PACKED with us... well, packing... I figured it'd be best to make my life a little easier by putting out the call for guest comics! You guys are always extremely clever, and in the past, I've really dug the comics you guys have sent in. I just know that I'm ALREADY going to be going out of my mind this week... may as well try to salvage at least some small part of my sanity by removing the need to work on the strip.

Not to worry, though... I'll be back again next week (unless something goes catastrophically wrong, that is) so no worries there. Anyhow, all guest comics should be e-mailed to gregdean@gmail.com, and should be 530 px wide. (no height restriction) Funny is also generally preferred. Oh! And don't forget to give yourself credit at the bottom! Muy importante!

Also, real quick - pictures of the cats have been posted in the forums if you wanted to have a look-see. We've got some interest, but we really need to find homes for these guys! Halp!

So, a number of things to get into today's rant, and they all have fair levels of importance, so I'm just going to attack them chronologically from the most time-sensitive to the less time-sensitive.

So, perhaps most pressing is that there will not be a comic today. I got really behind on packing for our move, and the evening snuck up on me. I've gotta get my ass to bed here in just a few minutes, so no comic for Thursday. Bleh.

So, yeah... hadn't really talked about it much, but Liz and I are moving once more. :) Nothing cross-country or anything like that... we're moving from Rocklin to Rancho Murieta. I know it seems like we move a lot, and we probably do, but there's usually a good reason for it. This time it's simply because when we moved here, we had literally 2 days to see as many potential places as possible, and this house was the only one that came through for us in that span of time. Now that we've spent a year living here, we can't WAIT to get out of it ... it's a three-story townhouse, so our knees are starting to kill us, and it's right by train tracks. I could go on and on about all the various other problems with it, but suffice to say, we're not happy here. So as luck would have it, one of the pilots from back when I worked at the Rancho Murieta Airport was remodeling a house and offered it to us to rent for 2 years at a VERY decent price. Without going into specifics, I can say that we're getting a 25% reduction in our monthly rent, and GETTING an additional 600 square feet, a full bedroom, and a larger garage... not to mention a house on a golf course. This is all a luck thing, mostly. I knew a guy and got lucky, mostly. Anyway, that move happens NEXT WEEKEND, and we're still mostly not packed yet. It's madness. Anyway, transitioning into our next item of import...

So, we don't talk about it in the comic really, (mostly 'cause I don't draw animals) but we have cats. Actually, we have a lot of cats... SIX of them, to be precise. I know how that sounds, but it's not REALLY our fault. It's not like we went out and collected them like beanie babies. We used to have just Diablo, and that was it. Sometime last year, though, while we were in Texas, Liz' niece was having problems with a kitty getting beaten up on, and they just didn't know what to do with her. She was spending all her time up on the fridge and generally just being miserable. So, being the bleeding hearts that we were, we agreed to take her in. I mean, we had one cat... two wouldn't kill us. And it didn't, really.

Then came the cat bomb. See, in Texas, our neighborhood had a lot of strays... most of them feral. I don't know what it is, but in rural Texas, people just don't think of cats and dogs the same way we do here... a lot of people just let them run wild, and that doesn't jibe with me. Especially when we see SO many of them dead on the side of the road. If you couldn't tell, we're kind of animal lovers. We're very big on the "Indoor Cats ONLY" mentality, so it's important to us that our cats stay indoors. Safer, too, since they won't get run over or catch any sorts of diseases that outdoor cats catch. So anyway, one of these outdoor strays, a BEAUTIFUL long-haired siamese cat with probably the most awesome temperament of any cat I've ever met, befriends us. We're adamant at this point that we have NO more cats in the house, so we give her a little food from time to time, but she remains 100% outdoors. She doesn't appear to have any owners, either.

Well, that all changed when we found out she was PREGNANT. *sigh* I can't, in good conscience, let a pregnant cat roam the neighborhood, and give birth to feral kittens. It's not good for them, it's not good for the neighborhood. So, we brought her in and stashed her in the mud room of the house for about a week and a half before she had her litter. 4 more cats, and only one of them was able to be given away. (People were really against the idea of getting a boy cat, which is ridiculous. They assume that only boy cats spray, which is completely false - males and females can both spray if they aren't spayed or neutered at a young age... which these were.)

So, the long and the short of it is, we have six cats. Diablo, Kali, (the cat from Liz' Niece) Shera, (The mother) and Vash, George, and Stupid. (The three brothers.) The thing is... we're REEEEALLY not supposed to have this many cats, and aside from the fact that having six cats is a pain in the ass to keep up with maintenance-wise, we're having some severe personality conflicts. Now that the kittens are about a year and a half old, they're beginning to chase and beat up on Kali, and we've had to start sheltering her in the guest bathroom at nights to ensure that she doesn't get her butt kicked every night. And for whatever reason, Diablo just cannot STAND Shera. She's a beautiful, sweet cat... but our old man just hates the hell out of her.

The meat of all this, and the gist is... we need to find homes for some of our cats. Before I get the e-mails, let me just cut them off right now... we'll NEVER give these cats to a shelter. I mentioned before that we're the bleeding-heart type, and I mean it. The thought of any one of these animals in a cage, potentially never getting adopted out, just kills me to think about it. They don't deserve that. So, my thought was basically that if there's one thing I've learned over these years, it's this - the readers of this comic are, on the whole, a stand-up awesome bunch. I feel like I can trust you, and the number of you I've met in person back that up. I would feel SO much more comfortable with a reader of the comic adopting one of our cats than I would some random stranger, and so I figured I'd post it here... guys, if you're anywhere close to the Sacramento area, we've got some cats that could desperately use a home.

• Shera: She's the mama cat. Not to worry, she's been neutered and had all her shots, as have all the cats, so there's no worry about a repeat cat bomb. She is, quite frankly, one of the most easy-going cats I've ever had the pleasure to meet. She's not stand-offish, either. She loves everyone, and is a great lap cat. Not sure how old she is, to be honest, but I'd guess somewhere around 5 years. She could pair well with another even-tempered cat easily, (Diablo is kind of a dick, but we love him for it.) but would be just as happy solo.
• Kali: This poor kitty is the one getting beaten up on, which is a shame 'cause she's REALLY sweet. She's a small black cat with bright yellow eyes and some goofy fangs that hang out the front, but on the days she's been allowed to just BE, she cannot get enough attention. I think the main problem is that she just needs to be a solo cat. She can be really skittish around other cats, but she's great around people. It breaks my heart to have to close her up in the bathroom each night, (though I'm sure she's fine with it if it means she's safe) and I'd just like to see her go to a home that doesn't have any other cats in it, so she can just enjoy your company.
• George and Vash: I list these two in the same paragraph 'cause frankly, they're kinda one and the same. They're kittens from Shera, and they have a great, loving temperament. They're both black and white, but George has long fur and only a black patch on his head and tail, and Vash is short-haired with patches all over. (like a cow) I have no real issues with breaking the pair up, 'cause I know they'd be fine individually, but if someone were interested in a GREAT pair of cats, these would be them. They work well together, they work well apart. The good thing about all these cats though is that they're super-nice cats, and have never once taken a swipe in anger. EVER. Never have I see any of them growl or hiss at someone, (other than each other) and I just don't think they have it in them.

Stupid... him we're keeping, mostly because he and our little chihuahua Selphie are absolutely enamored with one another. They're best friends. Can't break up a pair like that. Anyway, all four of these cats are up for open adoption to a Real Life reader. Our conditions are pretty basic... one, they really need to stay as indoor cats. They've been brought up as indoor cats, and for my mental piece of mind, I just need to know that they're going to be safe. Condition two is that you have to consent to me being a little nosy from time to time to see how they're doing. :) Much as they're a handful to keep up with, they've gotten to be family. We want to see that they're happy in their new home. Plus, you can totally take pictures and caption them in Impact for the full effect. :)

I've started a thread in the forum for you to ask questions if you have any (and for us to post some pictures) so feel free to post there, or e-mail directly if you'd like to come by to meet one of the kitties. The place is a freaking mess right now due to the move, but we'll grin and bear it, 'cause we really need to make sure these kittis go to a good home.

I know you feel like you've read a NOVEL by now, but this one will be a lot shorter than the last... next month, specifically November the 15th, will be Real Life's TEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY. Obviously I'll have some sort of crazy-ass comic to commemorate the occasion, but I want to do something WAY cooler than that... I want to throw a party. And you're invited. All of you. Any of you. So here's the deal:

First off, I'm not 100% settled on a venue yet. One thought we had was to hold it at GoKart Racer in Burlingame, CA - just south of San Francisco International airport. Space for a large number of people, AND we'd all get to race on one of the world's largest indoor racing tracks. Seems like a fun idea, but I'm not 100% tied to it yet, so I thought I'd toss it out to you for some ideas, as well. The main key to it is I want everyone to have a day that's more than just getting together and talking - I want it to be a fun event everyone will remember for a long time. It PROBABLY won't be free, just 'cause all these kinds of things cost money. But keeping the cost low is key. So let me know if you have any ideas for the venue, and after a few days, I'll put it up to a vote and we'll decide where to go. (Just remember, cheaper is usually better. :) ) A decade of Real Life calls for it. Let's DO this! :D

Okay... that's all I've got for now. This rant has officially taken me an HOUR to write, and it probably took you about that long to READ it. Sorry about that. :)