After initially losing the eBay fight over it, and swearing off eBay for the remainder of my days because I hate it, I got this in the mail the other day:

Turns out the original winner didn’t want to pony up the cash, so there it goes back on auction, and this time I luck out with the winning/only bid.  Yay me! (I do still honestly hate eBay though. If I want to buy something, I just want to buy it.  I’ll pay whatever ridiculous price it’s listed at, because I just want it, I don’t like the uncertainty of someone else coming in to swoop it out from under me.)

I first saw this game as a wee lad searching through the basement of my Dad’s house.  My Dad’s house was the best, and had the best basement, and I found this game, an original copy of ‘Keep on the Borderlands’ D&D module, and I’m sure something else amazing but those are the only two things I remember.  They were enough.  The copy at my Dad’s house wasn’t the box, it was just the cards, and the little hard plastic jewels that come with the game.  I never played the game, there were no rules, and no internet at the time to look the rules up on.  Instead I used the fantastically illustrated cards as action figures, fighting amongst themselves to slay the dragon, marry the princess and generally get up to whatever a 7-14 year old boy’s imagination can conceive of.  (The little hard plastic jewels I used for all sorts of stuff, but mostly as caltrops that caught myself, and my family, unawares, in the middle of the night.  My daughter learned a similar lesson last night, when we played the game for the first time, as it is meant to be played.)

It’s an ok game, the basic premise is a trick-taking card game, the jewels don’t really serve any purpose, the cards are obnoxiously large and there are only 10 to a suit.  I can see why it didn’t last long, BUT I LOVE IT. Because nostalgia is a drug that makes you stupid.

The other take away, Merunga playing cards.  They’re going to happen someday.  I’d like there to be a Merunga board game, I’ve got a couple of ideas kicking around for how that would work out, but a playing card deck, just for fun and giggles, that’ll happen too.

So we’re on Twitter now, feel free to follow me. To be honest, Twitter confounds me somewhat.  My only experience with the service is the ‘Celebrities Read Mean Tweets About Themselves’ segment, and I don’t even know what talk show host does that segment.

Until I have followers, I’ll feel foolish talking into the wind, and yet I won’t have followers until I sign up. A chicken and egg problem of the first world. However embarassing talking into the wind might be though, it pales in comparison to your 60 year old father being the one convincing you to sign up for Twitter. And when upon showing reluctance to sign up for Twitter he will enumerate it’s various benefits and uses.  I wouldn’t call it a lecture per-see, but it was full of stern looks and disapproving grunts when I continued to show resistance to the idea.

So here we are then, and hopefully there is some balance struck between useful/informative/entertaining, and no backsliding into pure obnoxiousness as I tweet about every bowel movement and crack in the sidewalk on the walk to school.

So let’s talk new year, not for the strip, our anniversary is in August, but in the holiday sense that now everyone has to buy a new calendar.  I didn’t buy a calendar, I don’t think I ever have, but I did buy my first ever planner the other day, and that was kind of exciting. I’ll probably talk more about my planner next week.  Because I’m becoming a new kind of nerd that finds planners and talking about planners exciting.

Broader scope though, broader, end of this year, I’d like to have a book out.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 259 strips, it’ll be roughly 130 pages, so 65 actual pages, and I want it available for the following March (in 2016) in the hopes of making my first convention appearance.  That’s not number one on my list though, three for now, but one I can push back easily.

Number two, and somewhat firmer footing than three, not a goal I’d push back in favor of shinier things, I’d like to cross more audience bench marks.  In the first five months highest number of visitors in a day was a shade under 200, highest number of return visitors was a shade over 80. First up, I’d like to break 500 and 100 respectively, and as soon as possible so I can arbitrarily make up new numbers and surpass them as well.

Solid number one, and this is a big one for me, have fun.  It is so true what they say about comicking, you have to love what you do, or you’ll fail out early.  Drawing is not my favourite or my best, someday I’d like to find someone to do the heavy lifting on that end.  I’ve always considered myself more of a doodler anyways, I won’t be sad to put my pencils down.  But I have loved every minute of this so far, and I have literally never had this much fun drawing before.  Honest.  Some of it doesn’t work out, but more of it does than I ever thought it would, and I’m thrilled by that.  I’m even more excited about what is happening next, and I want to draw that now!  I never thought I’d like drawing, finishing, work like this, but I am and it’s amazing.  So I hope you guys are having fun too, and will stick out the year with me, you won’t regret it.

Unless you’re super attached to certain characters, you’ll regret that for sure.