Am I the only one who giggles whenever I hear Avril Lavigne's "My Happy Ending"?


posted by Tim at 2:34 AM

ON HIATUS

I never thought it'd come to this. But here I am, joing so many others in taking some time off away from my webcomic. And I really don't like doing this in the middle of a storyline, but there's just an accumilation of too many things for me to really get into a proper groove. Long hours (which should hopefully be letting up soon), plus lack of motivation/writer's block, plus just discovering now my editing software isn't working and will need to be reinstalled.

Plus the fact that when you bring the family dog to the hospital, you don't really expect it to be a one-way trip. (More info here if you really want.)

But that's not the point. I'm not looking for your pity, and perhaps it's not such a huge issue where it should really interfere with comic updates. But, I think I just need some time off to get my head together and hopefully get some work done behind the scenes to make for some more consistant updates in the future. I've already gone a week without updating, what's a few more? We may as well call the hiatus as starting retroactive to last week. I'll still be around, though...perhaps making tweaks to the website, checking the forums (and what a rousing success that turned out to be), checking email and whatnot. I just won't be updating the comic. I'm hoping this won't be for more that a couple weeks, but who knows at this point. But the comic WILL be back! I am determined to get every one of my ideas out, and I've still got quite a few left to go.

posted by Tim at 1:38 AM

Okay, this is where things are going to get a little personal and LiveJournal-like. So if you don't want to read anything like that, I suggest you move on to the next thing. You have been warned.


Rest In Peace
PumpkinJuly 26, 1991 - September 4, 2004

Pumpkin, aka Pump, Pumpy, Pumpky Dog, Punkin, Punky, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpernickel, Bluppy Puppy, Soggy Doggy, and plenty of other nicknames. She was our family pet. Golden retreiver...purebred, I'm pretty sure...we could've gotten papers for her, if we bothered. Her color was much darker, more orange, than the usual "blonde" golden...plus we had gotten her in late September, when farm stands were putting our pumpkins for sale, so the name was appropriate. Plus she was a big dog...a bit more overweight than she ought to have been (we called it "well-loved")...usually just over 100 lbs. "Bear" was a word that sometimes described her better than "dog".

Something was amiss when I got home from work Wednesday night. The unusual thing wasn't that she was lying in the basement - she used to sleep down there all the time, plus company was over, so that's where she's sent to be out of the way - it was she seems unresponsive when I greeted her. Plus she was breathing heavily...very labored, through her nose. Very unusual for her. So, we brought her to the hospital (luckily Tufts Veterinary School is just down the road here in Grafton). And that was a struggle in itself, as Pumpkin actually collapsed a couple times, and she's a heavy dog to lift into the car. She was given an IV and oxygen, and preliminary tests suggested a possible tumor, or stroke. The next day an MRI ruled those out, and a spinal tap suggested there was some kind of parasite in her nose. Which explained the strained breathing, swollen face, excessive drooling, vertigo, etc. She was going to get treated with a kind of drug to kill the worm (without killing her, of course), but I guess over the course of the night she developed pneumonia, and was given only a 20-30% chance of recovery. So it was then the difficult decision was made.

Somehow, I think overall, I'm actually OK with it. I mean, she was 13 years old - I know she's not going to live forever, plus she'd kinda had arthritis the last year or so. The absolute heart-wrencher, though, was just seeing her lie there on the floor, breathing heavy, not recognizing us. Not quite realizing her surroundings, or even really to lift her head or open her eyes. I mean, there are some mornings where I almost expected to find her not breathing, but still, when something like that happens, it's still a shock to the system.

She will be greatly missed.

posted by Tim at 1:36 AM

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention...

Go visit my new forums!

I'll get around to cleaning up my menu bars eventually.

posted by Tim at 2:04 AM

Yeah, the only thing that's been updated less than the comic is my blog here. Ah well, it's not like it's terribly important.

So it's getting to be that time of year again where football season is heating up, and baseball season is getting into the postseason mode. If you asked me a montha ago, I would've been much more excited about the Patriots' upcoming season than the Red Sox. At this point however, I'm going to hang onto the Olde Towne Teame for a little while longer. Not that I really get into the Pats, but it's nice to see them win. Which is my point, they haven't for the last couple weeks. :-P

I will also be excited to see how the UMass football team's gonna do this year. Not only will we be playing our conference rivals/National Champions/good friends Delaware (who beat us last year, something like 55-43, in triple overtime), but also Colgate, who ousted UMass in the first round of the playoffs, and went on to lose to Delaware in the finals. Oh, and we'll be playing some team...uh, Boston College, I think is the name of it. I don't know, are they big? Sounds like a small school...small football program.

Freaky, I'm experiencing deja vu as I'm typing this. I don't know about you, but I get deja vu often enough to freak me out into thinking maybe there is something bigger going on.

Now back to Red Sox, which was my inspiration for the blogging today. Well, not so much the Red Sox winning - although that's always good news - and not so much the Sox are only 3 1/2 games back from the AL East lead, either.

It's the fact that New York lost to the Indians. 22-0.

Twenty two to nothing.

Worst. Loss. EVAR.

*inhales deeply*
Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!11!!!1!one!!!!1!! >:-D


*gasp*


posted by Tim at 1:45 AM