The Marvelous Patric

dear blog,

It's the penultimate day of 2008. I'm starting to look ahead and thinking about some of the arbitrary changes I can make to celebrate the change of the year that occurs several weeks after the earth has passed its furthest point from the sun. One change is I'm shutting down marvelouspatric.com at the end of january. I never use it any more. I'll simply make it a redirect to freaksnsqueeks.com for now. I'm trying to figure out just what that website should do now, if anything. When I started it, it was where I put everything, all comics and whatnot that I did back in college. Now, i do a daily and a weekly, each with their own url, and there's no pretty way to display them both on one page. I'm thinking it may serve best as a blog, but I'm blogging here and at freaksnsqueeks.com anyway. If there was more of a community around my comics, I'd focus it there.

My puppies are doing well. They were at the daycare during xmas. dexter has a bit of the stomach/digestive issues. dixie is okay, tho.

xmas went well. now there's all this snow. and it keeps coming! and i'm supposed to take the nephews to see bolt tonight, but if this weather keeps up, that may not be a good idea. which would be very disappointing for them.

the red drum on my new guitar hero drum stopped working. i called them on friday and they're sending me replacement drums. but i just got the email with the shipping label to send them the old drums now, so i don't know if this means they _just_ sent it today or it's going to arrive today. man, that'd be sweet if it did. i really want to have the drums for new years. worst case scenario, i guess i could buy the new rockband, but i really didn't want two sets of drums and the new guitar hero drums work with the new rockband.

wow, i have very not-serious problems in my life. or at least, the ones i share.

dear blog,

the pain is now in week 10. i saw a neurologist yesterday. she prescribed neurontin. she definitely believes it's neurological. she has two theories. one is a thing i can't pronounce or spell, which we'll treat with medicine and will probably be with me forever. the other is an aneurysm.  thus, i'm having a ct with angiogram or some such thing next monday down at abbot northwestern.  it's not a typical angiogram and uses some sort of imaging.  i don't really understand it, but it's not a standard ct and can't be done locally.  
oh, and i'll still be using the percocet as well.  i'm all drugged up.

the pain is destroying my life.  for the most part, i sleep a lot more from the meds.  i go to bed early, i take naps.  when i'm not asleep, i'm either dopey from the meds or barely functioning from the pain.  i haven't drawn at all.  i took a break from FNS to draw fun factory and it hasn't happened because all my time is homework or pain.  i'm missing a lot of work for all the doctor appointments.  the pain makes me nauseous.  it's just frustrating.  

i really need a new icon...  i haven't had glasses since april.  

i'm having a new years party.  if i know you, you're invited.  just a warning, my parties tend to be rather nerdy.  guitar hero, board games, etc.  but it's fun nerdy.  i sent out an email, but if i missed you, it wasn't intentional.  just shoot me a message and say you're coming.

my dogs are doing really well.  they actually sleep together now on my bed.  sometimes, there's barely room for me.  they play together all the time.  dexter has really matured since i got dixie.  he's much more confident.  and i noticed that the way dexter treat me, like excited to see me, wants my attention, etc... dixie is that way with me and dexter.  she's placed him in the same category.  i think that means he's higher in the pack hierarchy now.  which is good, because before, dexter saw the cat as higher in the pack than him.  
dixie has come really far from the scared, abused, little dog we rescued.  she now plays with toys and has even learned fetch.  she loves to play with her ball.  it really makes me feel good to see her blossom and grow like she has.  i feel like i really did a good thing adopting her and saving her from being put to sleep.  i always get the feeling she's just so happy to be part of a family.  

Current Location: home
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: mom's tv shows

dear blog,

it's raining. thundering. etcering. so i'm on my laptop, safely unplugged from any cords, at work using the wifi.

what's new with Patric...? well, let's see... I've been drawing like crazy lately. I'm actually ahead on FNS for the first time in ages. Not just like a little ahead either, but legitimately ahead. I hope to keep building on that. I've also been drawing Fun Factory again. Shocks! I'm gonna release the rest of the script we had finished once i get a good backlog of content. My plan is to post one panel every day, like mccloud did with his morning improv comics. i figure as long as it's a long form comic and there isn't much pay-off weekly with one page, why not give folks one panel a day and so when we reach a full page it feels like an accomplishment. it's kinda a scam.

this week, i've taken the plunge and i found a used cintiq on ebay. it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

this weekend is the DFL state convention. i don't think i'm going, which i feel bad about. I feel like i'm letting down the folks who elected me as delegate, but I just can't go. i have to work this saturday. And, if I took off this saturday, i think i'd have to work the saturday of kendrick's bachelor party. and i really need to be at that. no matter what i do here, i'm going to let someone down. i'd rather let down faceless voters than faced family. besides, even though i've been supporting franken the whole time, there's a part of me that kinda hopes Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer wins the endorsement. i wonder if i would have really voted for Franken when i got there.

saturday is also game day at paul and aleesha's. i have to work, but i'll go over after work. there had better be killer bunnies! i've really started geeking out on table-top gaming.

in a few months, it'll be time for SDCC. I'm going this year. I realized, days before pro-reg closed, that i would die if i didn't go. maybe my body would live on, but a good-sized chunk of my soul would have shriveled up and died. I'm going to do some more coloring samples and maybe see about doing some freelancing again. I won't have a table there, but it'll be nice to just walk amongst the people. Although, if anyone reading this happens to have a table they'd be willing to share or just take a few of the big FNS books, i would love to do that.

My entire application to grad school is in. I'm cautiously optimistic. I got it all in by deadline. I should have had it in sooner, but the whole politics thing got in my way and distracted me. still, i've applied and done all i can do.

all in all, i've been busy. i have also been playing with dexter and dixie quite a bit. the two dogs have quickly become very close friends and now my bed is quite crowded as both dogs sleep with me at night.

in other pet news, i was down to two mice. one of the mice got out and was found by dixie three days later. ginny, the escapee, appears to have suffered a leg/spine injury at some point. i'm not sure if dixie did it to her, or if it was the jump off the desk. so i put her back in the cage. somehow, she has managed to escape again, despite being crippled. i am less hopeful about recovering her a second time, because this time, i noticed she isn't eating the food i put out for her on the floor. meanwhile, janis, the other mouse, appears to be sick as of today. when i get home tonight, i fully expect to no longer have any pet mice.

Current Location: work
Current Mood: artistic
Current Music: thunder