The flight home was surreal. We managed the return sans crisis, so I was able to absorb every tolerable movie they had available, and some less tolerable, and some which were far better than they are generally believed to be. It was pretty fresh actually and I daresay I enjoyed myself some appreciable percentage of the time; Brenna and I high fived over the sleepforms of our larvae.
I caught the last of the MC Frontalot/Protomen shows Sunday night, and in abrogation of my typical "politely refuse offered drinks" policy I instead accepted them graciously and applied them directly. When I woke up, I had the distinct impression of being on the deck of a ship - a sensation which has not abated. When I walk down the hall, I won't lie: I cut a fairly jaunty arc.
Australians respond with such fervor over slights against their towns and are so quick to distribute these slights that I can't tell to what extent any of this is even true. I don't know if this is evidence of actual pride of place or if it's like the World Wrestling Entertainment version of pride. People approaching the microphone during Question and Answer panels would typically bootstrap their question with a fusillade of sorts against their erstwhile foes.
I was fucking around in a part of Melbourne called Fitzroy until after midnight when I realized that I had an abstract but more or less functional map of the town running as a background process. It was blurry, but the lines were all in the right places; it was all a matter of increasing the resolution. So of course we had to leave in the morning, right as I was getting it all dialed in.
I have learned a lot in the last few days.
Sand Part The Third is up. No, you haven't missed one; I'm including the pitch in the sequence.
Pinny Arcade was huge at PAX East and that makes me incredibly happy. Doing this right has literally taken us years and seeing how much fun everyone had with it was super rewarding. I loved trading pins at the show and I actually spent pretty much every free second I had posted up someplace trading. At one point I intended to pop by the PA merch booth and trade some pins. I traded non stop for two fucking hours! When I think about how rad the entire experience was I just can't stop smiling. So I'm super excited to do it again at PAX Australia next month. We will have the Pinny Arcade core set available as well as a special PAX Australia set you can only get at the show.
A few hours into the Melbourne flight, I was more or less covered in vomit. But I was so happy for something to do that I was - in a way which might be difficult to understand - tremendously relieved. There was something unexpected to manage with a "challenging" material that wasn't related to the destruction of the plane. It was, in its incalculably moist way, optimal.
I was under some misconceptions about what exactly the "International Date Line" was, or what the charges might be, if any. Now, flush with wisdom, I understand that it is a completely ordinary thing and not even a real line. But that is no reason not to enjoy myself at my cohort's expense, or to deprive you of that same enjoyment.
The rest of my Arcade machines arrived this week and I thought I’d give you all an update. I had a lot of people ask where I got them from but until they arrived I wanted to hold off telling you the name of the place. I didn't want to recommend the website only to have boxes full of broken wood and glass show up at my house. The machines are all beautiful though and worked great so I’m happy to tell you I got them from Arcadesmarket.com. I worked with Jose there and he has no clue who I am or that I’d ever be mentioning his shop. In fact there is a very good chance this link will wreck his site. I contacted a lot of vendors and Jose not only had all the machines I was looking for but he was also the only one willing to give me a great deal for buying so many at once. The cabinets are all gorgeous and most have been upgraded with flat screen monitors and modded boards to add a few extra games to each cab.
In a stunning turn of events, we're getting to one of the Child's Play Charity Dinner & Auction strips before December. I know! It has to be said: we're innovators.
Precipice 3 is $3, Precipice 4 is $3.74, and you can get 3 AND four for six bucks.
I actually just grabbed a screenshot of my desktop for the middle panel today. I think I’m as ready as I can be for the 17 hours of flying. Here’s what I’ve got:
Brenna's been packing since Sunday for Australia. Most of our personal items are arranged around the house in patterns which I assume have a metaphysical component - perhaps they focus H-waves, like a lens. I used to try and help with this process, until I realized that the best way to help was not to touch nothin'. When I pack, it's like, I put as many underwears in as I have days, and one pair of pants regardless of the trip's duration, and as many identical black shirts as are currently clean. I think of my backpack like a diving bell, or something: I'm not trying to live there, wherever it is, it simply furnishes whatever is required to exist wherever I happen to be going.
I'm still plugging away on Sand and I'm really happy with the way it's turning out. It should start running on the 15th or the 17th and it will pick up the story immediately after this strip.