Ah, last night almost felt like old times. Finishing drawing at 1:30am, not happy with hardly any of them, changing the script completely at 2:30am (this is not unusual - i tend to adjust the verbiage to work with the drawings. They play of each other - expressions need to match verbiage), and finally uploading the comic as 3:02am (I'm rather proud of this feat - i had to navigate the new mySQL backend to the site to do this. ^_^) and then, like and idiot, i sat there in a tired stupor teasing people on IRC with the question "what anime is the line 'don't wear clothes you can't get out of yourself!' from?" (pretty sad, even Natsuki couldn't remember till i gave her a big hint (sigh)) This morning I am exhausted, but oddly enough, i feel pretty good. Every one of these is like climbing a small mountain. Feels good when you hit the summit.

As most long time readers know, I've fallen on my face many times in the production end of this comic - many have called it an 'erratic' update schedule for the past few months. It's true, between trips to conventions, vacation, work, Seraphim starting grad school, etc, there has been a lot of stuff to manoeuver around. After a short panic-filled hiatus, I can often be found saying "well, now that i'm back on my feet, back on schedule" - which lasts a few weeks. ^_^

Today is a little different. It sort of makes all those other 'back on my feet' comments look like a joke. Like many people, I had a lot more to overcome than just being 'behind schedule.' I'm finally over the hump. Back to business. I've said that I'm not gonna let the stuff that happened last week prevent me moving on. Easy to say, hard to do. Now, I feel like i've achieved it. Sorry it took so long.

So, shall we get back to things? ^_^ I'm gonna touch on a bunch of things real quick, so bear with me.

First of we should all give a big thanks to Largo and Ukyo for the hard work they put into re-building the backend to the MT site. Most of you don't even realize what kinda stuff we can do now - it's going to be very easy to re-organize and offer various options for searching for comics and rants for things. Everything is easier to update, easier to change. There are a few little glitches we are still working on (like the table problem in IE for Macs - hang on folks, we'll get it fixed) but overall its pretty sweet. Thanks guys.

As many of you know, I don't like to accept donations of money or equipment from fans. I just normally don't feel right about doing it. In light of my recent problems with my very old CDR burner, and the fact that almost NONE of the original Megatokyo data had been backed up to CD (scary concept, isn't it?) I made an exception. AcquaCow smacked me upside the head with a spare HP burner that he had laying around until i finally agreed to let him send it to me. I'm glad i did. Megatokyo is now safely archived on 7 cdrs. Thanks dude, I appreciate the generosity.

Last week, i was going to point out exactly which bookbag is was that Piro uses over at Yakpak (i set up one of those nice little affiliate store things so that if you wanted to get yourself one, it'd help support MT ^_^). The disaster last week not only made me forget such things as bookbags and affiliate stuff - but it turns out that the collapse of the WTC buildings also took out the fibre cable that served the colo where yakpak's site is hosted. They were down for a whole week (everyone is fine - they are located in Brooklyn). Two weeks ago, the Yakpak folks sent me a box of bookbags in thanks for featuring one of their bags so prominently. I've replaced my black Medium Flapdozy with a Olive Drab flapdozy as my everyday bag - i love these things. ^_^

So, need a bookbag? Want one like the one Piro caries? Look for the Medium Flapdoozy under 'messenger bags'. That's what it is. :) Oh, and girls will get a kick out of the Small Flapdoozy (like the one i drew Yuki sporting.). Oh, if you decide to buy something, be sure to do it thru the following link. All purchases thru here help support MT:

Ahh, commerce. Like I've said, I don't really like donations, but if you would like to support MT and get some cool stuff in return - i don't think there is anything wrong with that. Besides, I need a new printer. :P

Speaking of merchandise, I still haven't uploaded that 'ph34r my l33t n4k1d skillz' boxer short design. It's almost ready to go. Oh, and the Pirogoeth poster is STILL in the works. i was gonna set them up for printing last week, but, well, you know. ^^;;

Geh, this got long quick. ^^;; I hope you enjoyed to day's comic. As you can see, we bounce around a lot between all the stuff going on in the story. Doing a meaningful dialog between two people is not easy to do in the space of a single page - what i covered today could easily have taken up 8 pages. I hate condensing things so much, but i think it's just part of the medium here that's developed for Megatokyo.

I hope everyone is doing well. I'm going to pick up the DVD for Patlabor Movie 2 tonight. I feel the need to watch it. If you've seen it, you know why. :