My buddy Dennis called Friday to tell me that he’s in town this week, but I misunderstood him. It turns out he’s in this part of the country (Utah/Idaho area) this week, but only in Utah until Sunday.

So today he called and I realized that if we were going to get together, I needed to drive up to Murray (about 30 minutes away). So I dropped what I was doing, and drove to Murray.

(Note: this means that Monday’s strip hasn’t been colored yet. Nor has Tuesday’s. This is a problem I’ll solve tomorrow.)

We had a great time hanging out. We didn’t do anything spectacular — just wandered around a couple of stores and ate out at Famous Dave’s Barbecue — but we had a great time nonetheless. Dennis and I served together as missionaries back in 1989 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and he’s pretty much the ONLY person from the mission I kept in touch with. Mostly this is because we both have the same geek-oriented interests, coupled with the same twisted sense of humor.

Now that I think about it, Dennis would get along really well with Chalain. In fact, it would probably be unsafe for Dennis, Chalain, and I to get together. Unsafe for everyone within 200 meters, at least. Bad geek humor has a blast radius. We wouldn’t need anything more volatile than a good curry to clear the room, and I’m betting we could get by without that, even.

I cranked out 14 days of scripts today. The Voices In My Head have been yammering non-stop for a week now, but I’ve been busy with book-stuff. I’m STILL supposed to be busy with book-stuff (footnotes aren’t done yet), but the buffer dropped low enough that I sat down this morning knowing I needed a good scripting jag.

I had one. It wiped me out. 19 rows of scripting isn’t really a whole lot of words, but scripting has to be TIGHT in order to work in my strip. Voice, plot, punchline… some of it is formulaic, but doing two weeks’ worth of strips in one sitting is very draining.

It’s also fun. I didn’t know what exactly was going to happen, though I knew the where, the who, and the why. Now I know, and I can’t WAIT to see how it looks drawn.

But right now I’m hammered. I’ll be role-playing here at the Keep until midnight-ish, and probably trying to pencil a few of these scripts on the side. Hammered or not, I really want to see What Happens Next.

–Howard

A big thank-you to kelloggs2066 for posting the link to the Toyota truck-thrashing progamme (spelled that way since it was a british programmmmee of course). I entertained my two youngest with it while I cleaned my office. I think they both watched it at least four times.

Oh… here’s the link.

My office is a wreck.

I’m not quite sure how it got to this point, but I’ve got to get it in order. I come in here and can’t think. NOT good, not with the buffer at 3 colored and 7 inked — there’s serious thinking to do right now!

Tomorrow morning I need to set aside an hour to haul out the waste-paper and the giant monitor I’m no longer using. Maybe then I can find the space to sort and tidy the stuff that is actually supposed to be in here. And maybe then I can get cracking on the buffer and the last of the marginalia for Book I.

–Howard