Fancy double-length comic to wrap up Chapter 1! In case you are confused, this strip is back in the present day. The flashback ended with strip 27.
 
I'm going to be outta town this weekend. Partee time! Woo hoo! Hopefully when I return, coolness of comic will continue. And maybe even a worthwhile blog too.
  ¶ 22:17

So, I didn't have time to do the comic this weekend. I SHOULD have. But we went to visit relatives in Longview and swim in their excellent pool. I was all ready to finalize my sketches... and then our keys got locked in the car. Yes. Everyone's keys. All of the spares. The person who did it said it would be embarrassing to put their name up on my site, so instead, I submit to you these versions of the truth. You decide which is most entertaining.
 
My Mother's Story:
"I locked the keys in the car. I went outside to get a change of clothes and left them on the seat. A policeman came and opened the lock with his Slim Jim. He also blared his sirens for the children, and we wondered what the neighbors would think was going on. It's a rich neighborhood."
 
My Sister's Story:
"I locked the keys in the trunk. But one of the windows was halfway rolled down, so I managed to climb through it. Then I pushed the button on the backseat that folds it down, and was able to climb into the trunk and get them out again. There was probably an easier way to do it, but I can't think of it."
 
My Father's Story:
"I locked the keys in the car. I absent-mindedly lay them in the trunk next to my briefcase while talking to relatives. Thankfully, the back door wasn't shut correctly, and I managed to work a hanger through the crack in the door enough to pull the lever and unlock it. Unfortunately, the battery was run down from all that time with the door ajar, and we had to jump the car off a golf cart.
 
My Story:
"I locked my sister in the car (She IS a Keys afterall). I shoved her into the trunk as a joke, but didn't realize she was holding the keys. She kept screaming until the policeman showed up, and he said his tools were in another squad car. Somehow Lara missed the glow-in-the-dark escape handle right in front of her face. After several minutes, she managed to collapse one of the seats and crawl through into the cabin. She revengefully wouldn't let us in for another fifteen minutes.
 
So. Whichever one you believe, that is the reason I don't have anything to offer you today. So sorry. I'll either make the comic tomorrow, or I'll make an extra-fancy one next Friday. The good news is, that flashback has finally ended. I hope I never draw that weird Esuna outfit again. ^_^
 
Perhaps you'd like to tell us how you locked the keys in the car?
  ¶ 20:23

Comic up. Pretty much the last one in this flashback series. Aren't you glad?

My mind is on the blink right now, so I think I'll try to write this blog over tomorrow or something. I seriously can't think right now. I'm going to go see the Bourne Supremacy tonight, though I still wish we were seeing I, Robot since robots (no matter how cheesy or whatever) are inherently cooler than spies. Man, spies don't even make it into the upper ranks of the ninja-pirate debate (Robots are usually third, see.)
For the record, I am a ninja fan. stickninja.jpg See? Jared made that pic)

Have a great day.

  ¶ 08:08

Today's comic is up.
 
Gideon is dead. Long live Gideon.
My fishy died suddenly for no apparent reason. One day he was energetically swimming around his bowl, the next he lay listlessly on the bottom. I did everything I could to make him better, but since fish inevitably die, there was little I could do to help.
He passed away while I was at Jeff's, so I instructed my family to dispose of him respectfully. (No flushing or throwing him away allowed.) They told me when I got home that they gave him a grand sending-off. It was kindof touching really. I know he was just a fish and all, but darn it, I'm sad he died after such a short amount of time.
I guess I'll buy a new one this week. :(
 
I saw City of God this weekend. It was really cool.
 
Sarah, I'm working on that story.
  ¶ 23:15

Comic up early again! Yay for me!
 
Dathan, I actually have a freeware php script that is very shiny, but its INSANELY INSANE to setup. I've already tried to use a perl script, but for some reason my bin doesn't like it either. I thought I defined it all right..... but something is amiss there. Thank you so much for offering to write me something (I may have you write it yet...) but mostly I would value your advice on setting the ones I have up, since my Dad doesn't do webby stuff. I'll probably mail them to you soon? Yes that was a question. To myself.
 
I just want to ask you prayin-types to pray for my boyfriend. He is going through hard times right now with his job and is just basically completely miserable. If you aren't a prayin-type, then at least be a well-wishing type or maybe a drink-in-your-honor-type. Streaking-type? One of those.
 
Wow and thanks to the large amount of feedback posted last time! It was fun debating art. Know what though? None of that idea was really about art to me. Haha. Fooled you. It was about the concept of Quality. In the end, it always comes back to Quality in my concept of The Good. (Go read that hippie book by Robert Pirsig if you want to know what I'm talking about, which I'm sure you don't. Too much philosophy in one week = lame.).
 
Going to Houston this weekend to visit Jeff. I'll be back Sunday night, and furiously drawing Monday's comic.

  ¶ 21:24

Hahaha! For ONCE I have completed a comic before midnight! I'm getting a jump start since I have an 8am Dr. appointment tomorrow, so I can't afford to lose sleep for my story. At least, not this time.

A plea to the computer-language-savvy: if you know Perl, I need your help. My comic is growing too large for my gallery navigation. I have a popular cgi prog called autokeenlite to help solve this problem, and its very user friendly, but I can't seem to get it to work for me. It SHOULD be working, but I'd really really really appreciate it if someone would look over the stuff I've defined and tell me if I'm a moron or not.
Another question: if something supports PHP 4, does that cover PHP 4.1 or whatever? Or only 4 and below? No one can seem to answer this for me.

Okay, boring stuff out of the way.

Now.

Do you have anything in your life that you CANT talk about? Not because its secret or uncomfortable, but because you ABSOLUTELY lack the language to communicate it to other people? Sometimes I feel that way. I have these ideas about purpose and meaning and truth (I'm not talking about faith here, since faith is a well-covered topic in our cultural history; I'm talking about being a person here on earth). But every time I sit down and write about something pertaining to these ideas, I come up against the edge of all words. I can't ever find any way to describe them accurately. Its as if some of these ideas are outside of language itself. I can try to hint at it by creating really long metaphorical situations. Or I can cross-reference different authors I've read, like Robert Pirsig, or Kierkegaard. But it always falls short of what I'm trying to say.

See, Grant wrote this long rambling comment about the nature of art on my 6.29.04 post. And while it was interesting, I feel like there are some very important things he missed there. (Though I don't blame him, the post is timestamped at like 5 AM.) I want to ADD to his thoughts and talk about how art REQUIRES and observer, and that there is this special relationship between artist, art, and observer that is crucial to... well to something, but there I've run up against that cliff's edge again. I guess the closest words to fill in the blank are "the truth" or "the meaning of life" or something. But that's not really it. I'm almost glad there isn't a word for it either. I think if I could really define it, I would be missing the point.

Man, I just stare up at all these philosophers on my shelf and ask them "Did you have this problem too? Did you know what it was, and spend your life trying to write out the answer?" Any philosopher is fair game. This thing is like the common thread that runs between them all, ALL systems of thought. Its like the reason they even THINK at all.

And you know, I'm not saying all of this because I feel like I'm so deep or something. Its definitely common to all people, even if they don't spend as much time fretting over it as I do.

Enough. I guess all I have to tell you about the last two weeks is:
1. I went to Fourth of July in Memphis (which was AWESOME, as usual).
2. I lost the traditional Scrabble tournament but I saw some beautiful fireworks.
3. I painted my sister's room with a swirling night sky design over the last week. Its AWESOME.
4. I'm really enjoying writing my comic.

Thanks for reading! If you don't mind too much, would you mind leaving a comment just to say you were here?  ¶ 20:13

So. Once again I'm fighting with my computer. Right now there is no comic section, so if you want to read the latest one you'll need to look at the link in my previous post. All the others are having serious issues. But here is the good news: I've FINALLY found a good comic navigation script. So sometime tonight or tomorrow I hope to have a very nice working comic section, complete with navigation buttons (Hooray!)
Please keep your fingers crossed for me, since I am coding in a language I don't know. In fact, I'm not even sure exactly what language it IS. (Though I'm guessing its Perl).

Man, you wanna know something? Even if only a very people read my comic, I really like making it. Its just something I have to do.  ¶ 22:40

Well, IF there is a comic up, it means that I won this fight against my stupid FTP server. God I hate computers sometimes. They are a drug I partake in and an altar I worship at, yet they despise me and thwart me at every turn.
I've got this huge long response to Grant's comments from last week... but I swear if I have to sit here any long I'm going EAT my hands to prevent them from clicking ANY MORE KEYS.

Have a cheery day ^_^

UPDATE: I lost the battle with my FTP, so I'm temporarily putting the comic here
page0023.jpg  ¶ 00:27

Gone to Memphis for the weekend, so I've put up a filler comic to take the place of Friday's and Monday's comics.
I'll probably write you a longer post when I get there.  ¶ 23:28