I’ve mentioned the trio of pom-pommed scotch pines in our front yard before. In examining them this year, prior to the annual trim, I realized that the big tree had cleverly managed to re-assume a “pine tree” shape, as lower branches spread out and higher branches reached for the stars.

We can’t have that. I love trees, but these trees want to be 100 feet tall, and they’re all within six feet of the foundation of my house. They MUST be stunted, lest they reduce my property to rubble over the course of the next six decades.

So I borrowed a 14-foot stepladder from my neighbor (the one who co-owns a local tool-and-equipment rental company), and this evening I set about performing butchery in the name of bonsai. I decided to wear long sleeves and long pants, which may seem a little on the hot side in 90-degree weather, but which probably saved my life. The tree seems to know that I’m allergic to it, and so it defends its shape by attempting to inject me with “essence of pine” anywhere I’ve got bare skin. Last year my forearms were liberally peppered with welts. This year my shirt was liberally gummed up with sap.

Long story short: it’s done. I had to cut waaaay back in some places in order to encourage nice pom-pom shapes, so for the next couple of years the tree is going to look a little scraggly.

It is angry with me. It probably takes what little selfish pleasure there is to be had among treekin in the fact that after two Excedrin PM and a long, hot shower I can still feel my lungs itching. But by Wednesday I’ll be all better, and the tree will still be scraggly.

At the very end of this article about wearing yellow shirts in Thailand (an interesting discussion of patriotism vs. the free market if ever there was one) we find the following paragraph (emphasis added):

“As a teacher, I was so embarrassed and felt pretty guilty for notwearing a yellow shirt while everyone else had one on,” said WanchaiKondongnok in the southern province of Chumporn.

I’m not sure what it means in Thai, but I’m sure I don’t want to find out what it means in English…

–Howard

I just read about this foiled Toronto terror plot, and they ran the following picture next to the article, describing the items that were seized:

Let’s see… a semiautomatic handgun, a soldering iron, and what appears to be a voltmeter. I have all three of these things in my house.

What I do not have is three tons of ammonium nitrate. Personally, I think that would have made a better picture.

–Howard

This morning I sat down to sketch out the project plan for the next Schlock Mercenary Book, Schlock Mercenary: The Blackness Between.

The story runs from August 24th of 2003 through March 14th of 2004, which is 29 weeks plus a Sunday. That’s 88 three-row pages, which will require something like 45 sketches, margin bits, or new footnotes in addition to the 15 footnotes already running during that story. With the introduction and sketch page, it’s a 90-page book before I add the bonus story or any other materials.

100 is a nice round number. It looks like this book will be a full 20 pages longer than Book I. I’m okay with that, provided I’m not “padding” to hit the number.

I’ve got about 20 rows of comics from February and March of 2004 that will need to be recolored, I need to create the cover art, and obviously I have to create the bonus story and other materials. I’ll be doing the principal layout myself, and probably having Steve Troop tweak it for me when we approach our print deadline.

All that, plus feeding the buffer, is how I’ll be spending my summer. Those of you who bought books have paid my wages for at least that long. I may have a quick family vacation, and there’s Comic-Con to attend, but other than that, I’ll be a busy guy.

–Howard