So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats (“Fool’s caps”). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, “Don’t you want your hat?” and he tells me to fuck off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this fucking coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I’m aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I’ve never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head “no.” This really isn’t a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say “No, I did not.” Then, he says “did you at least finish high school?”

I know you're dying to.

He's pissed at YOU. If he's pissed at me, it's simply because I know you. It was clear to me from the start that he wouldn't appreciate having to "share" guest of honor status, so to my mind an altercation was inevitable.

I think that Harlan guy is really pissed at us.

Before the convention itself got underway, Foolscap guest of honor Harlan Ellison was savaged by a parrot.

Just as a kind of exercise, the SkyMall catalogue is something we've used to keep our minds off the realities of flight for years. The strip we did awhile back about a machine which would repel either dogs or witches (but never both) was born of this odd, airborne magazine, and when we got off the plane from Hotlanta (which I have heard Ludacris refer to as "The ATL") we just tossed it in the laptop bag.

I'd heard of their other mods, but their PSP project seems to be shaping up nicely - check this thing out. PSP displayed to your television might make UMD a fraction of one percent more sensible.

The Baltimore Comic Con as a strictly business venture was not what I would call radical. That said, I think it's healthy for us long-term to sit at our empty booth for a half and hour before anyone stops by. As well as things have gone, some failure and desperation ought to provide much needed ballast.

I'm prescient. There's not much game there to criticize, unfortunately. If you want more than that, you can wait for someone who gets paid to write four pages when one sentence will do.

The posters we've been hauling around to cons are now available on the store, printed to much heavier stock than usual. I refer here to the Subway and Fruit Fucker posters, of course.

I got some real positive mail about today’s comic strip. I appreciate that. One of my favorite things to do is to try and mimic the design or the look of something else. I like to see how close to the original I can get. I’ve been doing it for a long time and I think some of my recent attempts have been pretty solid. One of my favorites is the Kung Fu Rooster I did a few months back. Trying to make the last part of that cartoon look like a still from an old cartoon was really fun. Anyway today’s strip was my attempt at mimicking the trailer for the new Revolution controller. I feel like I came about as close to it as my photoshopping skills will allow.

We're obviously late to the Revolution Party, but so many people asked us what we thought of the controller announcement.

We’ll be attending Foolscap VII this weekend in Bellevue. We’ve never been to a convention like this so we’re a little bit nervous. We’re guests of honor this year along with Harlan Ellison which blows my mind. Anyway if you’d like to come out and see us we’ll be on some fun panels. On Saturday we’ll actually be re-creating our “how to draw cartoons” lesson that was such a big hit with the third graders a few months back. We’ll be there Friday and Saturday but unfortunately not Sunday since that is my birthday. So if you are in the area I hope you’ll come see us.

When I was talking to the Demiurge cats, one of them mentioned that there was some co-op levels in the new Brothers In Arms that took place from a German perspective. I've been wondering when someone would tackle it, and I think Gearbox is up to it.

I love the entire idea of preloading. Even though I'm not actively engaged in the process, I somehow feel more productive. It's like watching those home renovation shows. When that data arrives, I'll feel as though I've had a full day.

I - we - would be lying if we said that speaking where we are speaking is not intimidating. We walked through a kind of hive where students formicate, and I am told this honeycombed structure is called the East Campus. It was unbelievably hot throughout, and if we had been at any other school I'd have said there were ventilation concerns. Given the location, it seems more likely that some rogue intellect had managed to yoke geothermal power.