In most cases, 95% is as close to 100% as makes no practical difference. Oh, sure, over time that 5% may add up to be a significant AMOUNT, but few people will quibble over it. Foods are advertised as being 95% fat-free (which means they’re 5% fat), students who score 95% on a test are happy with their “A” grade, and none of us want to catch one of those hemorragic fevers that kills 95% of those infected, because we know that even if we end up in the 5% category, we’ll still be miserable.

I just turned 38. That’s 95% of 40. It’s also 50% of 76, which is older (by two decades in my Dad’s case) than the last two generations of Tayler males.

But I’m not depressed. I’m happy. I’m a full-time cartoonist, and on the “survive to be 40 years old” quiz, I’m getting an A.

–Howard

As sandratayler mentioned, chalain and I nibbled on a habanero pepper last night.

I need to do a full write-up of this event. I need to post the photos, with commentary. I need to post the video.

But first, I need to eat a box of bandaids.

Ordinarily I’m always working. Technically, given my line of work, THIS is working. But today was nice, because after painting Sunday’s strip (the one that just aired, yes I was a little behind on the colored-and-uploaded buffer) and uploading it with the rest of next week I took a 90-minute nap, and then decided to read a book.

The book review is here, and one of the co-authors, seawasp, is a mutual LJ friend of mine.

I must say, it was a GREAT day. I have piles of work to do on Monday, including what I hope to be a 10-day mad dash to finish the digital pre-press work for the book. I have a busy day on Sunday, too, which is fairly typical for active Latter-Day Saints. Today, then, seemed like a good day to take off. Granted, I only took HALF the day off, and then I turned my vacation time into a book review, which technically recategorizes the second half of the day as work, too, but still… it FELT like a vacation.

And that felt good.

I just want to publicly say thanks to the crew at the Keep last night. We didn’t end up RPGing. I had too much work to do to take a break to roll up a Mutants and Masterminds character. Still, everybody hung out for four hours after the store closed shooting several varieties of bull.

And as a result I was able to ink an entire week in one sitting there at the end of the table. I REALLY needed to get that work done. So… a big thank you to danwillis, Jason, Ari, Jeremy, and gearworks. It’s weird, but for some reason the inane conversations of geeks and gamers helps me work.

In related news, if anybody has a drawing table or drafting table they want to donate to The Dragon’s Keep in Provo, UT, I have it on good authority that they’ll carve out a corner of the store for me on a regular basis.