Check out House of Sugar, a weekday-updating webcomic version of Rebecca Kraatz's criminally-overlooked comic strip! Hope will be publishing a full-length House of Sugar collection later this year. (There's also a livejournal feed that hasn't started updating yet as of this writing, but add it anyway!)

(If you know who Joel Plaskett is, well, Rebecca has been his girlfriend for a million years and has done many album covers for him. And in the interests of full disclosure: I personally designed and coded the website for the webcomic.)

Recent stuff!

• CHUD interviews me (with Devin Faraci, at MoCCA on Saturday)
• Fluxblog interviews me (with Matthew Perpetua, via Gmail Chat, early last week)
• Torontoist interviews me (with Mathew Kumar, in Toronto a few weeks back)

i vaguely recall the setlist i played at the mocca afterparty...

1. 21 (i fucked it up pretty bad because i realized how drunk i was only after i started playing the chords)
2. totally untitled
3. lydia long-ago
4. you practically rock
5. refresh me (i haven't really recorded the final version of this one, it's the "i fought the war, i got the girl, kill me now" song)
6. stars
7. don't let the archons get you down (this is a new song that i haven't recorded yet, but it came out pretty well at the show)

The show went well. I sold out of books (24 volume 1, 18 volume 2, 54 volume 3?) in a matter of hours, and did a few interviews. I ate three lunches (a taco, some sushi, and later Subway with Chris).

Afterwards Chris and I went to check out the preparations for the afterparty, and then we went across the street and I had just one (double) gin and tonic, and a pile of fried calamari, and I became extremely drunk very fast, probably due to tiredness and a crazy day. We went upstairs and I had one beer and I played my songs. I felt drunk at first but better once I finished the first song. The last (new) song came out well and people said "woo" at the best part and that made me feel good.

Later we went on Jon's roof with the Dumbrella boys and some of their random lady-friends. I also ate pizza during this section and it was extremely delicious (breaded chicken w/ tomato).

Sunday was more low-key. I bought shirts, Hope bought a dress, we hung around the show, ate sushi, etc. Crazy dinner at the end of the show at Spring Street Natural with like a zillion people. My caeser salad was good but Hope's meal apparently not so good. We ducked out pretty early and said bye to everyone. We went to see A Prairie Home Companion at a nice movie theater on Houston east of 2nd Ave. Conversation with the guy who took our tickets:
ME: Is there a bathroom upstairs?
HIM: Maybe.
ME: Maybe?
HIM: Nice shirt. (turning to Hope) Nice dress.

On Monday we walked around, bought kitchen stuff (her: sweet rolling pin, me: Microplane grater w/ rubber handle), looked at comic and book-stores in St Marks Place, ate at Cafe Colonial (Hope said it was her favourite meal of the trip - she had the Brazilian beans and rice). Hopped in a cab, dragged our asses back to the airport. Bought books (her: The Devil Wears Prada, me: Until I Find You). The end!

"There are lots of comics about nerdy boys, but fewer about nerdy girls, and I think there should be more!"

1. The Toronto Star profiled me on Saturday. Nice article! It was almost a full page and had a bunch of pictures. If anyone can provide a scan that would be cool.
   
   EDIT: Here's a scan on my flickr. (Thanks Heather!)
   
   
   
   
   
2. I went to Anime North and also had a release party. Thank you to everyone who came and saw me, and apologies to anyone who was disappointed by my contributions to the release party. I really just wanted to sign books and talk to people and maybe play some music. I never intended to do a reading. It was a false rumour! The music fell through because we couldn't get any gear. Also, the new room at Rocco's didn't have a sound system yet, nor a liquor license, so the party kind of migrated towards the alcohol pretty soon (not my fault!). I really am sorry to all the under-19 crowd, but I'm really glad you came.
   
   Anime North was pretty good. The anime scene is enormous and slightly frightening these days (and very young, and largely female), but everyone seems very sweet. I got a picture of a girl dressed up as Yuna from FFX-2 on my cellphone, and I swear to god she looked exactly like my Yuna toy! I only bought a few things - a little Mario/Blooper keychain from Magic Pony, and a few video games (Space Channel 5 and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter). Oh, and Devil Man volume 1. Also a lot of used manga from J-town.
   
   EDIT: here's the photo from my cellphone. Warning: obviously it's a terrible photo, from a camphone. Looked better in real life.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Dumb request, but since there's 500 or whatever people reading this, I might as well ask: does anyone have a copy of the PS2 game "Shadow Hearts: Covenant" that they want me to have? I can't find it anywhere (it's out of print I guess), and I always wanted to play it, but I was too busy before. I will trade you whatever you want for it. Or I can just borrow it for a while and send it back to you?