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WOW. Tangent. Okay, so it's been a pretty eventful week here at Real Life Headquarters! (Also known as my office.) Harper's keeping us busy as always, but that's not ACTUALLY the reason for the lack of updates - the real reason is that last week, Liz got an honest-to-god job offer! (OMG SPOILER ALERT.) A good one, too - which considering her previous offer followed the phrase "What's the LEAST you'd be willing to take?", is a pretty big deal. So we kinda took Wednesday off to celebrate, and then my usual thursday-night-dinner at my Dad's ran long, so it kinda nixed friday's comic. And after a busy weekend, I had to get to bed early to get UP early so I could help my boss move all our crap from one office to another, so I nixed ANOTHER comic. These things do tend to happen... I wish they'd be a little less frequent, but now that I'm constrained to doing the comic after 9 PM, it's slightly more frequent than I'd hoped for. I'll figure out a routine eventually, I'm sure.

But the MAIN reason I'm making this post isn't to reassure you of my alive status, it's to call attention to two auctions I should have called your attention to much earlier. See, Pat Rothfuss is doing his annual Worldbuilders charity drive, and I've donated two items to the cause: The first is an appearance in the comic, for one or more days as the story calls for it. (The previous winner showed up in the recent Stargate strips) It's for a really good cause if nothing else, and while I can really only guarantee one comic for sure, there's always the possibility that I'll extend it for particularly high bids. :)

The SECOND item is a little more near and dear to my heart: This year, I undertook knitting a Doctor Who Scarf. It took well over a month of knitting for as much free time as I could muster (probably well over 70 hours) and a CRAP ton of yarn, but I finished that sucker, resulting in 13 feet of garter-stitched goodness. It even made it into the comic once or twice. And with all that said, I felt it was one of the only other things I had of any real value that I could give up to the cause... so I did. The 4th Doctor's Scarf is also up for auction, and I hope it does well. Not only because it's for charity, but mostly because it took me a crap-ton of time to make it, so I feel like it has a lot of value. :)

The thing is, I lost track of time during all this, and as of the time of this writing, there's only a tad over 18 hours left on these bad boys! So if either of them sounds enjoyable to you, or if you just like giving to charity, head on over and give them a bid! And don't forget to check out the other cool stuff Pat has available to people who donate over at his blog. Thanks, everyone!

Home | Archive | Forums | Real Life Store | E-Mail | Deutsch

Home | Archive | Forums | Real Life Store | E-Mail | Deutsch

Home | Archive | Forums | Real Life Store | E-Mail | Deutsch

ALSO part of the nature of a meme is that it tends to get away and separated from its origins. Lots of memes can't even be tracked down to who originally created them, and they just take on a life of their own. I never really knew where this particular meme came from, until today when I referenced it, and someone mentioned to me in e-mail that, yes, the original creator does indeed exist.

One thing that sucks more than anything is reference without attribution. Accordingly, you can visit Hyperbole and a Half bY Allie to see more by her. Before today, I didn't know this site existed, but it looks pretty funny, and I would hope you go check it out. A meme's a meme, but at the very least, the originator of said meme should reap some benefits from it going viral.

I've been kinda knocked on my ass with some kind of disease or another for the last 2 days (thus the no-comic day) and I'd meant to post this yesterday, but I was just kinda out of it. As promised in the comic, the Enterprise D Ambient sound. It's only an hour long, but if you drop it in a looping sound player, it does the trick. :)

And now I can go die in peace.

First off, I wanted to let everyone know that we actually found homes for both Gandalf and Vache! Thank you guys for your support, and thank you to the two readers who stepped up to help us out! Vache went to his new home yesterday, and Gandalf is off to his next weekend, so that's just really exciting. :)

Secondly, I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking about Rummi Bears. I obviously can't claim credit for it, since I was just following instructions from Gizmodo, but the rum thing... that's all me. First off, yes - it DOES work. Secondly, there are a few things you need to remember: One, use Haribo bears. They stand up to the infusing very well. Two, the bears need to remain refrigerated, and will melt into a puddle after a few hours out of the fridge. Three - it's a two way process. At the end, you're left with alcoholic gummi bears, and syrupy sweet rum. :) Try and use this information only for good.

Lastly, after last friday's comic, a lot of people wanted to see pictures of the actual Star Trek Diapers. I am all too happy to oblige. Thank you again to Toni for her help with getting the blanks embroidered, and to Liz for putting up with a husband who wants to put our daughter in Star Trek diapers. :P

Many of you (who read the rants back at the time) know that last July, our cat Diablo passed away. It was a sad time for us, to be sure, but what's happened since then has been kind of rough. See, way back when Liz and I first got together, we had Just Diablo and Gandalf, a small Russian Blue that we adopted as a "buddy" to Diablo. Since then, we had a number of other cats come our way - some from family members who didn't know what to do with them, and the three brothers from Texas when we didn't want to let one of the local cats have kittens outside. In any case, when Diablo was around, Gandalf (who's kind of a fraidy-cat) pretty much just stuck to his side and didn't get messed with. Now that Diablo's gone, however, we've had sort of a shift in the household, and now the other cats have a tendency to gang up on Gandalf. (for some reason) At the same time, for some reason or another, one of the three brothers (Vache) has started to fight with his brothers a little bit. Lord only knows why.

The thing that really baffles me about this is that ALL of these cats, individually, are incredibly well-tempered. They've never gotten pissed and taken a swipe, never gotten angry - They're the most calm cats I can think of. But regardless, we've got a situation where inter-cat relations are not doing well, and I think the optimal solution here is to find new homes for Gandalf and Vache where they're the only cats, and then they'll do great. With that in mind, we're kind of putting out the call to our Central California readers to see if anyone can help us out and take one of these kitties in. We had really good luck with finding some awesome people a few years ago when we had a similar problem, and I kind of feel like I can trust you guys. Liz and I have a real problem with taking these guys to a shelter, even if it's one of the no-kill shelters or something like that. Despite the problems we've had getting them to get along, they're still family, and I'd like to see them go to someone who can drop me an e-mail from time to time to let us know how they're doing, you know? I'd just rather MEET the person taking them in than hope and pray the right person comes along to a shelter. In any case, with that out of the way, here's a little bit about these two boys:

Gandalf
Gandalf is an 8-year old Russian Blue, which makes him just a tad smaller than other cats. He kind of looks perpetually like a kitten, really. He's incredibly lovey - if you give him attention, he'll purr loud enough to be heard in another room. Sometimes I'll call Liz on my way home from work and I can hear him purring over the phone. He's kind of skittish around new people, and finds some pretty interesting hiding places, but on his own, with nobody chasing after him and trying to beat up on him, he spends pretty much all his time out and about. Really, even WITH the other cats beating up on him, it's kind of a rare thing that I don't see him just lounging on the back of a chair.

Vache
Pronounced "Vosh", (it's French for "Cow", on account of he looks like a cow) this is one of the three brothers we happened into as part of the "Cat Bomb" back in Texas. He's a sweetheart, and will be perfectly happy just to chill on your lap for god knows how long. As with Gandalf, he's one of the cats that makes himself scarce when company comes over, at least for a little while, but eventually comes out and makes friends with them. He's also really soft, and kind of on the heavy side (though we've curbed that a bit over the last year) which comes in handy when using him as a pillow. Again, he's incredibly well-tempered. I always see cats over at other peoples' houses that would just as soon rip out your jugular as look at you, and these guys just don't really have that instinct in 'em.

They've both had their shots, and they're both neutered. We do ask that anyone who takes them keeps them as indoor cats only - they've never been outside, and they're not really able to handle themselves outdoors. Plus there's just a lot of potential health problems and the "disappearing cat" syndrome that goes along with indoor/outdoor cats, so just in the interest of keeping them safe, we'd ask that you keep them as indoors-only. Other than that, this is pretty much a call out to anyone in central California, since we'd be willing to drive up to a few hours to bring one of them to you if need be - when Kali was adopted, we drove her out to Santa Rosa - a good 2-hour drive. Obviously, we'd prefer it to be someone a TAD more local, but we really just want to find these guys some homes, so we'll do what we need to. If you're interested, and can help us out, drop me a line at gregdean@gmail.com and we'll work out the details. Having to re-home a pet is a tough situation, but knowing he was with one of you guys would make us feel a lot better about it. All my experiences with the readers of this comic have been incredibly positive, and that goes a long way for me. Thank you again for all your support, folks!

Check out the details at the facebook event page, and RSVP as soon as you can so we can get the specifics nailed down. I'm hoping we can get enough before the weekend, but you never know. Anyway, yeah - I look forward to seeing you guys then!