Childhood is a funny thing. You have a tendency to look back on things that were a part of your life back then with a certain kind of deep nostalgia that is hard to pin down. There's also a saying that those who fondly remember childhood were never children. There are a lot of consistent themes in anime and manga that deal with childhood memories and longing for the simpler happy days of childhood. Even the theme of "Osana Najimi" - looking for your childhood love - that is so common in ren'ai games deals with the source of your affection being someone you first met as a child.

I saw on the news this morning that Mr. Fred Rogers of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" fame passed away. I guess i just wanted to say, sad to see you go, Mr. Rogers, the world will miss you. :)

I suppose it's kind of sad to realise that significant memories of your childhood can be connected to TV shows. When i was a kid (yes, they had electricity back then... enough of the old age jokes >_<) I used to watch plenty of TV. We didn't have VCRs or DVDs, or even cable - programming for kids was actually pretty limited compared to what is on the tube today.

It's easy to call it 24 hrs of nonstop braindulling sludgefest, but i wonder if that's not really fair. Kids like the stuff. There are shows i used to love when I was a kid that i couldn't stomach today, and there were shows that would have bored me to tears as a kid that i worship and watch religiously as an adult.

It's funny how when you are a kid you wanna watch shows that make you feel more like an adult, yet as an adult we often gravitate to things that harken back to things we connected with as kids. The popularity of animated stuff has been directly tied to the fact that we all used to watch them as kids.

We tend to undervalue exactly how much impact TV has on our development. When i was a kid, Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood was my favorite show. I was born around the time that Seseme Street first aired. I also used to watch Captain Kangaroo and The Electric Company. We didn't have any purple dinosaurs. Heck, even Speed Racer was a rare treat. I don't know if i can tie anything i do specifically to any of these shows, but i can't describe how sad i felt when i learned that Mr. Rogers had passed away this morning. I mean, he had lived a full life, it wasn't nessisarily a tragic thing like some of the recent tragedies that we've all seen on the news, but it still made me stop for a moment. I guess it's some sort of connectivity thing. Humans are remarkably odd emotional creatures.

Anyways, i don't know i even have a point this morning, but I guess i don't always have to have one.

I've been keeping pretty busy with MT and Warmth related stuff this week, so much so that i've been letting little things slip (not that there is anything unusual about that). I've become very comfortable with my new G4, and in the near future i'll be writing a pretty extensive report about my experiences with Mac OS X. One of the main benefits has been my change to a fresh new email setup here on the mac (been using Entourage... its so weird that the mac version of Office is better than the version for tier own OS. Go figure). This is resulting in much better email handling by me. If you have emailed me recently, i have read it, and in many instances i've actually responded! I can't respond to everyone, but that's just because i dont have time to answer every single email that comes in ^^;; But let's just say that things are better.

The first installment for 'warmth' is done, and I am currently working on re-hashing the cover image and some omake material. I am rather upset with myself for the fact that I was not able to finish as many pages as I had originally planned. That said, I am in no way ashamed of what i have is done, i just wish i had been able to do more... but thinking I can do more than i really can do is normal for me. Getting this off the ground, and getting the first salvo of a multi-page manga like this done was something new for me, and I learned a lot doing it. If you go to the trouble to read "warmth", i hope you won't be dissapointed. I'm happy with where it's going.

In other publishing news, the second printing of Megatokyo volume 1 is under way. It still boggles my mind that all those books, like, sold. Still trying to absorb it all, i guess. I also feel honored that one of the most respected trade magazines in the publishing biz, Publisher's Weekly, did a story on Megatokyo as well as a review of the book itself in this week's issue. You can read the article here. I'm more than proud of how well MT is doing, and its all because MT fans are the supportive, crazy maniacs you all are. :)

Speaking of Megatokyo books, I am in the process of working on extra material for Book 2, which will be available in about a month. IC Entertainment has started taking pre-orders, so if you are eager to get your hands on the 2nd installment of Megatokyo, which will include Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 as well as extra material, head on over and place your pre-order (please note that IC Entertainment is not taking pre-orders for Book 2 - piro).

Now, if you had any problems or issues with your pre-order for the first book, I would like to assure you that IC entertainment has taken drastic steps to make sure that Pre-orders, no matter what the volume, will be what they are supposed to be - the quickest way to get your hands on the book. I would not be promoting pre-orders if I did not feel comfortable that this was the case (Just ask Kei, i've beat her up about this quite a bit). Like I explained before, IC is a small company, and they usually handle shipping pre-orders themselves. Due to the volume of MT books and the needs of MT's online fanbase, they now have in place the resources and the manpower to professionally and quickly ship anything we can throw at them. :) If you have ANY problems, old or new, you can email either me directly or you can email Kirk at questions@ic-ent.com. It's been a priority of mine to make sure everyone is taken care of.

Back to drawing today's comic. Hope everyone has been happy with the progress of the story so far. I'm almost happy with. Getting there.