At feet no longer there



In my few free hours I'm slowly tinkering away at the new website layout. I've always rather liked this one, so I'm being especially picky about what I choose to replace it with.



I'm doing this mainly for structural desires, rather than visual ones, so you don't need to worry about me adding rainbow colours or animated GIFS or anything. The new website will be in keeping with the visual "style" that I've got going now, but with some new elements added and some old elements shuffled around a bit.



It should be pretty neat. I just wish I knew when the heck I'd get it done!



I really couldn't help but notice that, when I mentioned my book in a rant last week, it resulted in a massive sales spike. Thanks, guys! I'll do my best not to abuse this newfound power.



Book book book book book book!



Sam Logan

Fire eye'd boy give 'em all the slip



Why haven't I posted my top ten albums of 2005 yet? We're already well into February! At first I was delaying my selection because I had to catch up on a lot of records that I hadn't gotten around to listening yet. But now, I'm just stalling because I can't come up with a full list of ten albums. I keep stalling out at nine... there just wasn't another album last year that I enjoyed nearly as much as the nine listed below (in no particular order):



Broken Social Scene - "Broken Social Scene"

Ben Folds - "Songs for Silverman"

Spoon - "Gimmie Fiction"

The New Pornographers - "Twin Cinema"

Beck - "Guerro"

System of a Down - "Mesmerize"/"Hypnotize"

Deathray - "Believe Me"

Franz Ferdinand - "You Could Have It So Much Better"

Gorillaz - "Demon Days"



I guess it's ten if you count both discs of the System of a Down double album. Or, you could make it ten if you included The Go Team's "Thunder Lighting Strike," but that was really a 2004 album that just took forever to get an official release in North America.



But heck, what does it really matter anyway? I am just a man with a website, recommending some tunes that I enjoyed. I guess nine albums is probably good enough!



Sam Logan

And you're walking away, but where to go to



Claire, my partner in crime, is looking to part with a few of her pets, thus slightly -- slightly -- decreasing the total size of the animal kingdom occupying our apartment. We have a remarkably friendly bearded dragon named Thor who would love to find a new owner who can spend more time with him than we can. We also have several hand-raised rats of various ages who are available now because Claire is retiring from the breeding business. The rats are free to good homes, but we're asking for a little cash for Thor because he comes with a tank and all of his required lighting equipment.



Claire has started a thread on our forum full of details and adorable photos. If you live in our neck of the woods (Victoria, BC) and would be a responsible, caring pet-parent, we'd love to hear from you!






Several people have asked me if Mr. Blank (that's my nickname for the masked man appearing in this week's storyline) is a reference to a flash cartoon called Madness. To answer your question... no! I'd never seen this Madness cartoon until you folks pointed it out to me. It does look pretty similar, though, doesn't it?



Actually, Mr. Blank's face originally was blank. I only added the cross because it was too hard to figure out what way he was facing without it. I pencil that cross on the face of every character I ever draw as a reference point for placing the eyes and nose. For Mr. Blank, I just decided to leave it on there instead of erasing it afterwords!



Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!



Sam Logan