A few months ago our role-playing party was ambushed by a druid who turned most of our non-magical metal items into wood. Among the losses — Tim’s character “Irshad” lost his heirloom pair of matched masterwork scimitars. This became the impetus for us taking a contract to “learn more” about the druid (and eventually Irshad put a few rounds in his ten-ring.)

There’s the back-story.

Today Tim brought cheese. We ate it. He had to leave early, and the only utensil he’d brought for tearing into the gouda and brie was a nice Oneida flatware fork. As he was leaving he said “I’ll be back later — please don’t lose the fork. I need it.”

I said “because it’s a decent fork, or because it’s special?”

“My grandfather bought a matching set for me just before he died.”

“Ah,” I said. “Heirloom fork. We’ll take care of it.”

Indeed. The door had barely shut behind him before I was turning to our GM… “Drew,” I said… “We need to find a wooden fork.”

It turns out that flatware-sized wooden forks are hard to find on short notice. At the grocery store we picked up a box of nice plastic forks. Back at the Keep I gave it a coat of primer, and Drew began picking out colors.

Base-coating (a warm brown) took about three minutes. Another three minutes under a desk lamp and it was dry. Then Drew and I began painting wood-grain on it in “bleached bone” (a warm off-white). The phone rang. Tim was ready to be picked up back at his place (it was raining). Drew said “I’m in the middle of something… I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

So… the two of us frantically painted wood-grain. Then we washed the whole fork with Chestnut Ink, which is a reddish-brown translucent color that provided common tone for the base-coat and the grain. Total painting time was maybe 15 minutes, start to finish.

Drew went to collect Tim. I gave the fork a coat of matte varnish (Krylon spray). And I have to say, it looked a LOT like a wooden fork.

When Tim arrived he plunked his stuff down and looked at the fork. “What’s THIS?” he asked, picking it up.

“Well,” I said… “We meant to take good care of your fork, but there was this druid…”

I hope Tim keeps the fork. Ten years from now it may be as much of an heirloom as that Oneida set. I mean, how often do your friends speed-paint something for you as part of a practical joke?

I pencilled and inked six days of comics today. Yeah, my arm hurts, but it doesn’t really hurt any worse than I remember it hurting when I was doing this kind of stuff in January. I’ve been careful to ice it, and stretch, and stuff. To be honest, it feels good — like a good workout. Besides, I like having a week of comics done. I only got one day done last week (I lost a week of buffer), so today’s work was psychologically very important to me.

I’ll be taking a couple of days off (Wednesday and Thursday) before a weekend of drawing at A-Kon in Dallas.

After that… well, I think the buffer is going to have to hover between 47 and 53 for a month or so while I finish the book. Building the buffer beyond that point is just a numbers game, while finishing the next book actually puts money in the bank.

I saw Pirates III today and loved it. I laughed. I cheered. I cried. I pondered. I had piles of fun. I waited until the very end of the credits, and I’m glad I did.

The plot was very complex, but I paid attention, and was rewarded for that. The film hangs together very, very nicely. The first film is still better as a stand-alone offering, but this film and the 2nd one are better overall (and pretty much have to be treated as a pair.)

Every question the 2nd film left me with was answered to my satisfaction in the third one. And I had a LOT of questions.

My only complaint (other than the bladder complaints, but that’s my fault for not ordering a smaller drink) was that the Kraken was handled a little too conveniently. They made a great point with it, but storywise it didn’t make much sense. Beckett would not have relinquished control of a tool like that unless it was dangerous to him personally, and that danger was never described.

The Evoluent mouse that somebody recommended a week or two back finally arrived. The principle behind the thing is that if you mouse with a regular mouse the bones in your forearm are rotated to full extension, stressing the arm. This mouse is worked from a “handshake” position, so that the arm is in a more relaxed position.

It feels great.

It also has nifty programmable buttons, and an uber-cool “speed toggle.” I configured it so that when I smack CTRL-Windows and it toggles between ultra slow and fairly zippy, allowing me to switch between detail work in one spot, and grabbing a tool on the 2nd monitor without having to pick the mouse up.

It also doesn’t need to be picked up. Because of the way it’s laid out you can just tip it to the side and scoot it in order to reposition it on the mouse-pad.

I’ve had it for a day and I love it enough to recommend it.