Dave Sim responds to my letter from March of this year in his blog (#291 & #292). Before the “blog” (I use quotes as Dave doesn’t blog in the usual sense. He types up his entries in a word document, gives a disc to someone who then emails them to the guy that posts them on the blog. ) I’d get a letter from Dave from a couple days to a couple weeks after I sent the letter.

So this three month time delay is going to take some getting used to. That and having the entire world read my letter to Dave and read his response. Kinda like having Collected Letters with the letter writer’s original letter, posted. Which I don’t really mind, as I’ve got this blog and as you’ve seen, I’ve posted letters to Dave here before. Though I don’t remember posting any of his letters here. . .though prehaps I did, I just can’t remember them right now.

Though it really is just an odd time delay. . .

So my response to #291, which I posted to the Yahoo!Group as well:

Dave: Darrell also sends along a couple of Victor Davis Hanson columns including an interview with him from THE JERUSALEM POST. THE POST asks:But…let’s save that for the Sunday Edition (no, that wasn’t what THE JERUSALEM POST asked). We’ll get back to Victor Davis Hanson, but first let’s check in with Margaret Liss (only three months ago – 21 March). Margaret writes;

whooooaaaa. flashback. Dave already talked to me about this letter at SPACE. . . .

Dave: See what I mean about Margaret having a “blind spot” when it comes to Cerebus and Dave Sim?

“blind spot”, great admiration for, call it whatcha want. :)

Dave: I talked about it with her in Columbus and explained that there really is absolutely no value in the negatives. Even if you back them with a white sheet of paper, unless they are absolutely flush with the backing paper you aren’t going to be able to see anything. I’m with Matt Dow on this one: I could have “suckered” you and Jeff out of money for them but certainly in my own mind that would be what I was doing: “suckering” you and that’s something that I just don’t like to do. And I really think it would have just been you and Jeff. The biggest problem for ME is that there is labour involved on my part – all of the negatives are stripped up on huge two-foot by three-foot “flats” that expand dramatically when you roll them up (which is the only rational way to mail them – in mailing tubes: to send the negatives to a specific trade paperback to Lebonfon, the new printer, flat and protected, I have to get a special box constructed that costs somewhere on the order of fifty bucks at a box-making place way to hell and gone out in Waterloo). Or I have to take each of the negatives off the flats individually, put sheets of paper between them, find sheets of cardboard to brace them, put them in envelopes…

I’m already working 12 to 14 hours a day just to keep from falling too much further behind than I already am and at a specific point that requires making hard choices about where and into what I’m putting my time. No offence, but there was no way I was going to put in the hours making sure I had preserved and packaged upwards of 2400 negatives (in ADDITION to the 6,000 negatives that needed to be preserved) for you and Jeff.

I do tend to forget that it is just Dave up there in the AV offices and with all the other stuff he has to work on, packaging his “garbage” to send to Jeff or myself is very very very low on the list of priorities – that I can understand.

Dave: No, you weren’t too pushy, Margaret – you were just trying to communicate the sense of urgency you felt and that you managed to do — but for me it’s in roughly the same category as the time the guy picked up my cigarette butt off the sidewalk out front of Jim Hanley’s Universe on the ’92 Tour and asked me to sign it. Which I did. A lot of guys wouldn’t, but I could see the humour, so I did. If I’m not mistaken it’s even turned up on eBay from time to time. But that’s very different from me choosing to get little Mylar snugs made for all of my cigarette butts and making sure that I signed and dated and numbered them sequentially (to make sure I had a “complete set” categorized by package of 25) every time I stubbed one out and then getting Jeff Tundis to make up a special “cigarette butt” page at cerebusart.com and paying him for all his hard work in cigarette butts.

Umm. Cigarette butts he says. . .::rubs chin:: that could make a pretty penny on eBay. . .

I kid, I kid.

I just saw some retail value in the negatives to other diehard Cerebus fans out there, which could earn AV a bit of money. However, it would appear that the time and cost for the “shipping and handling” of said negatives would not make this a cost effective endeavour.

Dave: I’ve been slowly cleaning out Camp David out back of the house and there was a whole whack of what are presumably now Ultra Rare Dave Sim Viscount 1 cigarette butts (since the supply ends at March 17, 1999) back there but I wasn’t tempted for one minute to sit down and sign and number and grade them. Whoosh. Into the garbage. I would estimate that what Jeff has posted and is selling on my behalf (and thank you, Jeff) of the tracing paper drawings represents about 25% of the available supply. Up until I started saving them they were just considered garbage on studio clean-up day. So, okay, I persuaded myself to look at them as more than garbage and there is any number of successful bidders over the last few years who are glad that I did. But it really doesn’t require me having to let my mind’s eye go too far out of focus to know that BASICALLY what I am doing is getting Jeff Tundis to sell my garbage and paying him with my garbage to do so.

While I can kinda understand the mylar negatives being considered garbage, the tracing paper drawings are part of the creative process and as so hold value with regards to the history of the creation of Cerebus. Not dissimilar to the notebooks, though I would put those a couple of “chessboards” above the tracing paper drawings, they both fit in the same category of “materials used in the creation process of Cerebus.”

And my response to Blog & Mail #292 (also posted to the group):

Dave: Actually, not really changing the subject, just answering Margaret’s horror at my throwing out the Bi-Weekly negs with some more information:Dave: I still have at least nine massive cardboard folders that need to be gone through that probably contain another two or three hundred negatives – none of which are actually needed in order to keep the trade paperbacks in print or to produce the CEREBUS covers volume at some distant future date, so there is no question that I will be able to send you (and Jeff, if he’s interested) SOME Cerebus negatives and I promise to do so – rolled up in a mailing tube. But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they’ll stay in the mailing tube and every time you run across it, you’ll pick it up, weigh it carefully in your hand, carefully pull out one of the negatives (and end up getting three or four of them instead), look at them for a few seconds, then spend a half hour getting them back into the mailing tube and sit there and wonder, “WHY did I want these again?”

Well, my original idea was to sell them on eBay to earn AV a (probably very) small sum of money. But as I said in my response to Blog & Mail #291, it will probably not be very cost effective to do so. Though my own curiosity will be sated as I’d love to know what the mylar negatives look like (working with mylar phototools to shoot a negative image on photolithographic film at work, I have a rough idea of what they look like. . .but the engineer in me is curious to the whole production of comics, and printing process.).

Dave: And ULTIMATELY – somewhere up ahead in the distant future – I assume the negatives will get digitized. I can’t really justify the expense right now (it’s about two or three grand to get Lebonfon to digitize one of the trades) but I assume the expense will come down as it always does with computers and somewhere up ahead I will be able to get the trades digitized at Kinko’s for 2 cents a page (and get a nifty Kinko’s coffee mug and fanny pack because of the volume of business) and at that point there will be roughly nine hundred two foot by three foot flats that I will no longer need and you will be more than welcome to rent a flat-bed trailer U-Haul and come up here and take them all back to Massachusetts with you. Of course you’ll have to rent another apartment just to store and display a fraction of them but (as we all know) if anyone’s going to do it CerebusFangirl is going to do it (you really should design a costume).

Well, I do have the shiny new white motorcycle with matching white helmet and white jacket. . .nah.

Me: “Also — while I’ve got a moment of your time – I am enjoying the Blog & Mail. Well, except when Jeff was just posting your daily prayer. I understand that you were sick and wanted some time off from it all…but I rather enjoy reading your essays on Islam or your Biblical insights that you usually posted on Sundays. So, seeing that you’re feeling better is good on two fronts: 1. you’re feeling better and 2. no more repeating of the prayer. Nothing against the prayer – I would say the same if you just repeated the same blog entry again and again. I’d rather have new material to read.”

Dave: Yeah, that was just one of my little quirks. I figured from the beginning that the Blog & Mail should be a daily thing but that raised the question of Sabbath content. I didn’t want to have people even getting the illusion that Dave Sim spent the Sabbath blathering about Spider-man’s new costume even though I would have written the material on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. When I got sick, I was able to get Claude Flowers to cover for me with excerpts from COLLECTED LETTERS 2 which he was already working on. That seemed to be more than enough of an imposition on a guy who was scrambling to get a job without croaking at him over the phone “And can you make sure that all of the excerpts for Sunday are faith-based?” So, I decided to share the imposition by getting Jeff to type up my prayer and, of course, when I started getting better a couple of weeks later Jeff rather broadly suggested that for all the time that he had put in typing the prayer (and it’s certainly much, much, much longer in cold type than it is in the ten minutes it takes me to recite it) he hoped that I might get more than two “insertions” out of it. I so seldom get a combination “excuse to slack off” and ” mandate to Do the Right Thing” that I (in my still wobbly state) metaphorically jumped at it. It shan’t happen again, Maggs, unless Dame Indisposition pays another visit.

Well, I for one would be interesting in reading your commentaries on the Gospels, which would constitute Sabbath content. Perhaps just some excerpts from them, to wet our appetite should you ever decide to publish them in the future. But hopefully Dame Indisposition doesn’t pay you another visit – as on one hand I’d like to read the commentaries, but not at the cost of your health.

Side note to self: Understand that the Blog & Mail is not something that Dave is required to do, there is no contract, no obligation on his part. So you should just be dang thankful for what you get. :D

Dave: Synchronistically, as I am writing this section, the clock is ticking down on June 6 with me leaving for Toronto tomorrow and the fact is that Jeff will be out of Blog & Mails come Monday and I’m unable to find Sandeep Atwal — who downloads the Blog & Mail entries onto disk and then e-mails them to Jeff — so I have an emergency call into Claude to e-mail Jeff excerpts from COLLECTED LETTERS 3 and have also faxed Craig Miller about e-mailing Jeff excerpts from FOLLOWING CEREBUS 10 which, in either case, is still going to leave me with the same problem of the Sunday Edition and I will (sorry, Margaret) probably just get Jeff to re-run my prayer. Who knows? Maybe Sandeep will turn up in the next seven hours and save the day. And spare you another exposure to my prayer.

::whispers:: Gospel commentary excerpts instead? But wait. . .Toronto comicon has come and gone so I won’t be getting any commentaries . . .another odd time “bump”. . .

Dave: I hesitate to even pretend to be the definitive Answer Person on these things (as you will remember, Jeff Tundis asked me a while ago to send him a list for Nate of what printings each of the trade paperbacks is on. Under the natural assumption that the books here at the house would all be the most current printings – supplied by Recker from their inventory – I went through and carefully documented the information and read it to him over the phone. He faxed me a week or so later with at least five examples where my answers were demonstrably wrong.). However, with that caveat, according to my latest inventory list (month ending April 07) from Recker there are second printings of issues 151 and 152 (both in stock), 153 (sold out), 163 (in stock), 164 (sold out – except for the last few copies autographed by Gerhard that I still sign for the occasional letter-writer inquiring three years later about the Neil Gaiman free Sandman parody issue offer and the carton full in the basement which I optimistically had Recker send when it looked as if the free comic book offer was going to hit the 3,000 mark instead of tapering off to nothing at around 2,000) and 165 (in stock).

It amazes me that all of the 2nd printings were for the Mother & Daughters issues. Thanks for the info.

***

So I know chances are very unlikely that Dave will ever see this if I just post it to the group, so I’ll print out my blog entry to mail to him. . .

So NetFlix got back to me about the Sopranos Season 7 question I had:

From: Netflix Customer Service <customerservice@netflix.com>

Hello Margaret,

Thanks for your inquiry.

I apologize for any confusion or frustration this has caused. Please allow me to elaborate on the disc structuring of “The Sopranos Series”.

The last Season of “The Sopranos” is “The Sopranos: Season 6: Part 2″. The creators of “The Sopranos” split the last season into “The Sopranos: Season 6: Part 1″ and “The Sopranos: Season 6: Part 2″. Thus the final episode of “The Sopranos” that aired 6.10.07, on HBO, was the final episode of “The Sopranos: Season 6: Part 2″.

There was speculation that “The Sopranos: Season 7″ would be created, which resulted in us adding it to our website as a title that could be added to the “Saved” section. However, the creators opted to discontinue the Series. We will be removing “The Sopranos: Season 7″ completely from our website shortly.

We will definitely be carrying “The Sopranos: Season 6: Part 2″ and will have it available for rental the first day it is released to the public on DVD.

I hope this helps to clarify any confusion regarding “The Soprano’s Series”.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Thanks,
Jessica
Netflix Customer Service

So NetFlix was lying when they said they ran out of discs and couldn’t get it anymore. When I looked it up on the IMDB their information collaborated the NetFlix info. Why didn’t they just say that Season 7 is actually Season 6 part 2?

(Funny, the “title” line, it will start to autofill in when I start typing. . .appears I’ve used “What a week” before. Umm.)

I can’t believe that tomorrow is Thursday already. How the week has flown by. Think of a class A inspection. The company commander  inspects the platoons, picking apart the uniforms: a loose thread there, a regimental crest out of position by 1/4″, two medals in the incorrect order, etc. Everyone has something wrong. While the troops are sullen because of their poor performance, the C.O. tells them, the Battalion commander is to inspect them in one month, so to get their uniforms squared away, and be ready.

Then the troops find out that a month after the Battalion commander is to inspect them, the Division commanding General is to come from Headquarters and inspect them as well. So while the C.O.’s inspection was harsh, and hard to take and keep their head held high, it was only to right them for when the Battalion and then the Division commander’s inspect them later.

That has my week at work thus far.

***

I’ve ridden the bike in all this week so far, but tonight we are supposed to get thunderstorms, at least according to the red / yellow / orange mass heading our way on the Weather.com radar map. Gah! So much for riding. I was having a great time of it, taking all the different routes home that I could think of.

My feet have gotten used to where the foot-pegs are, and I can move them to the side as to stretch them out without hitting the gear shifter or rear brake pedals.

I got a pair of new riding sunglasses also:  Zan Headgear Prowler Sunglasses with the amber tint. They are great. Not so dark as to make things muddled, but they do a great job of keeping the sun from making me squint. In fact, during the morning, the sun has not yet risen high enough to be blocked by the visor of my helmet (a 3/4 HJC number). But with the new sunglasses – no worry! I can still see fine without squinting.

The sunglasses are almost like goggles wrapping around my face. They have a little foam along the edge, which keeps the wind / air to a minimum: my eyes no longer tear up when I go fast.  Except the occasional tear of happiness when I round the perfect corner. The haven’t fogged up on me while I’ve been riding, but they did fog up on me at the break table the other day. It was so hot out that I started to sweat, and the perspiration caused a bit of cloudiness. A cool breeze soon relieved both the stickiness of my skin and the fogginess of the sunglasses.

A great deal for $17.

Crap it appears.

When I was in the US Army, 23 July 1990 – 24 July 1995, I was paid, per year, according to the Social Security Administration:

• 1990: $8,081 (less then half a year’s Army wages + what I used to make as a cashier at Stop & Shop)
• 1991: $9,771
• 1992: $11,484
• 1993: $13,092
• 1994: $14,227
• 1995: $13,679 (approximately half a year’s  Army wages + my old security job pay

Even the Army 2006 pay rates seem like . . .nothing for the risk involved. I would have been an E4 with over 4 years in service, so I’d be making $1,935.90 per month. The Army is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So for a year that is $23,230.80 or $2.65 per hour if you count all the hours in an entire year. Sounds about right for a waiter’s wage, but you tip a waiter, should we be tipping our military enlisted folks?

Or perhaps you prefer the 40 hour work week would give our enlisted woman a $12.10 wage (assuming 4 weeks with 40 hour work weeks per month). That isn’t too bad. Especially when you adjust for food allowance money, not having to pay rent (either staying in the barracks, on post housing or getting a stipend to pay for off post housing) and the other “extra” monies like hazardous duty pay, jump pay, overseas pay, etc. The military doesn’t do half bad.

I remember being deployed to Haiti for four months and getting both the overseas pay and the hazardous duty pay (they wouldn’t give me or my then husband separation pay because while we were both deployed and not together, we were both still in Haiti, even if we were in two different cities on different coasts of the country), I didn’t have to pay rent, food or insurance . . .and I was confined to either being on patrol or just to the platoon’s camp (and later the company’s camp). No time or place to buy anything. So with no where to spend our money, the savings grew. And to top it off, all money we earned while on deployment was tax free.

So looking at just the numbers, I can see how some folks think our servicemen and women should be earning more.  But dig a bit deeper. They’re doing okay. I hear stories occassionally of some military family who has to go on foodstamps because they don’t earn enough to feed their 4 childern. Well, perhaps they should do like most families do nowadays: either have less kids (opps! too late.) or have the “dependant spouse” (the military’s term for spouse of the serviceman or woman) get a job too instead of staying at home.

And don’t get me started on the inequities behind a married serviceman’s or woman’s pay and a single soldier’s pay and side benefits. I wrote a letter to Army Times back in 1993 or 1994 (one of the years I was in Panama I remember), about it. Perhaps I’ll scan it in and post it when I get a chance. I don’t know how much things have changed since I’ve ETSed, but Army pay seems to be on approximately the same level. It is just all in how you look at it.

So one of my friends had Sopranos season 7 in his Netflix queue the other day until they removed it for what sounded like a load of shit reason. So I put it in my queue, just to see what would happened.

That was a week or so ago, whenever the last episode aired on HBO. Today I go to look at my queue to see what would be next in my mailbox. For some reason I scrolled down to see what would be releasing soon from the hold list. The Sopranos season 7 was highlighted in purple and had a link to “click for update.” So I clicked and got this message:

 

Update on Your Queue

The Sopranos: Season 7 has been removed from your Queue. We no longer have enough copies of the DVD to satisfy customer demand. Unfortunately, we are unable to purchase more of this movie and will no longer offer it for rental.

We realize this is disappointing and want to reassure you that we remove movies from our web site only in unusual circumstances.

We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you find many other movies to enjoy at Netflix.

What the fuck? For real? How can Netflix, a huge corporation (nowadays it is) does not “have enough copies of the DVD to satisfy customer demand. Unfortunately, we are unable to purchase more of this movie and will no longer offer it for rental.” Please. That sounds like they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. When I searched google, I found one possible explanation of what could happened – as the users at Hacking Netflix pose the theory that Chariots of Fire was pulled right before a major re-release of it by the studio.

But that doesn’t make sense as this DVD set hasn’t even been released yet. The was talk of this happening to another DVD, but that one is a hardcore porn, which I can understand Netflix not wanting to carry it.

The one last idea was the producers or HBO or someone who has the authority to do it, made an exclusive deal with another company, not Netflix, for the rental rights. But according to talk here, that doesn’t sound all to legit either.

So after I couldn’t find anything in their FAQ about this, I sent Netflix’s customer service an email:

I was wondering if the Sopranos season 7 will ever be listed for rental on Netflix and why it was removed?

I know Netflix’s customer service leaves a lot to be desired, as after two days their response usually is just to cut and paste answers from the FAQ. So we’ll see what they have to say, if anything, to my inquiries.

So I’ve put my first hundred miles on the new bike.  I’m kinda getting used to where the foot pegs are located, being in front instead of straight down like the Kawasaki’s foot pegs. I’m still not used to the key / ignition being down on the left hand side by my leg. So inconveniently placed. Which engineer thought of  that and why? Did it really seem like a good idea? It wasn’t.

With the Kawa I would use the key to turn off and on the bike.  Now with the Honda, I can’t really reach the key except with the left hand. So I either have to be in neutral so I can release the clutch lever or turn the bike off via the “engine off” switch, or kill switch, whatever you call it. When I use the engine off switch, I better be sure to turn it off when I go to restart the bike. Or I’ll wonder what the hell happened that my bike won’t start.

I won’t get started on why there is no tachometer, like they couldn’t afford the extra $100 to throw one on, but why is the speedometer down by my crotch?

Well, it isn’t way down there, but it is on the fuel tank. Which looks really cool, but makes it a pain to look down to see how fast I’m going. With the Kawa I could keep my eyes on the road and see the speedometer (and tachometer!), but not with the Honda.

And Honda must’ve designed the bike with no room for storage other then ‘buy our extra $1K saddlebag set-up’. Blech. I’m not the biggest fan of saddlebags, makes the bike look. . .overburdened. I also don’t like a windshield and fairings for the same reason. Bulky, cluttered appearanced I’m not a big fan of.  But I digress. There apparently is no storage room on the bike whatsoever. On the Kawa there was a small tray under the seat above the air filter compartment and some space under the rear plastic piece. Enough room to put a piece of metal for a kickstand prop, some paper towels to wipe off a wet seat, a garbage bag to cover a seat so it doesn’t get wet, and my wallet.

Of course, the Honda dealership didn’t give me a manual – though it is kinda expected for a used vehicle (I didn’t get one either with neither my Toyota nor the  ‘Stang), but it would’ve been nice – so I’m ordering one online for $16 via a site from the Honda website (some guy on eBay was asking $49 for it! Outrageous scammer.) We’ll see if that gives us any hints to hidden storage areas.

Other then those minor quirks, the only other frustration I’ve had with it is neutral. I find it too easy. Or more precisely, I don’t shift up hard enough from 1st to 2nd and I end up getting it in neutral. Which is a bit of a pain when I’m taking off from a stop. So I’m trying to remember to hit it hard so I don’t accidently throw it in neutral.

The bike handles great, and I’m just getting use to her sounds and shakes. The bike must have a damper on the handlebars as the rearview mirrors don’t shake and I can actually see what is behind me with them. The handlebar grips are comfortable and my hands don’t hurt after riding a ways on on it. And the get up and go? Pretty nice. I wanted to see what she’d do when I opened her up so I got on a highway for a bit. The on ramp was a cloverleaf so I took it easy in 2nd gear making the tight turn and when I got to about 3/4 of the way through the turn I started to pull the throttle back, shifted and onto the highway I went. I looked behind me to move into the flow of traffic and there was no oncoming vehicles so I pulled in and continue to give her plenty of throttle and shifted like a mad woman.

The bike easily got up to 80 mph and was just growling along. I was topped out in 5th gear, but I still had some  throttle to give her. I didn’t want to go any faster though as it felt as if my helmet was going to go flying off and the only thing keeping it on was the chinstrap.  It is a nice feeling to know that if I need it, I have the power to pass and take those hills easily.

My new Honda Shadow Spirit 750 DC is a great bike – no so large as to be cumbersome, and not so small as to be a tease.  It’ll take me a bit, but I’ll get used to the little ends and outs of it. Now I just need a name for her.

After a post by Jeff T on the Yahoo!Group, I’ve come to rethink one point in my previous missive, so a follow-up letter to Dave:

Hello Dave,

Just a quick note ~ With regards to my previous letter about your Blog & Mail entry, Jeff Tundis made a good point. The topic being:

You stated: “By Margaret, I assume you mean Margaret Liss. Margaret is incredibly helpful with her www.cerebusfangirl.com website but she does have a (how would you describe it?) Dave Sim blind spot?  It’s very possible that someone doing a cerebusfangirl website is one of the few things that kept me out of jail for the last few years.”

And I stated: “I doubt my website is that well known to accomplish that task.”

The point Jeff mentioned was that whenever someone searches online for Cerebus and / or Dave Sim information on the internet, my website is one of the top “hits” that comes up. So while I don’t view my website as a huge traffic generating website in comparison to other websites, it is a large one for Cerebus related information. So I stand corrected and your point does stand. My apologies.

w00t! Here she is, a pearl white Honda Shadow Spirt VT750 DC:

I picked her up last night after work. I couldn’t sleep the night beforehand, I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas. I had signed all the papers at the dealership two nights before, and gotten the insurance taken care of one day before and Friday was to be the RMV to tranfer the registration from the  Kawasaki to the Honda. So when I woke up on Friday to bright sunny skies as the forecast had promise, I was very excited.

At lunch it started to rain, and I got a bit nervous. But it seemed to be one of those quick hard thunderstorms and the sun was back out in less then an hour. . .But less then a half hour of sun, and it was more dark ominous clouds and thunderstorms. I checked Weather.com, and it didn’t look good. Perhaps those big swatches of red and yellow would pass to the south of us? I hoped it would.

When 5pm came, I talked to my ride who was to meet me at my place, and then I took off. . .and as I stepped outside, big giant raindrops had begun to fall. The skies were going to open again, releasing a torrent of water: I had to make it to my car quickly before I got soaked.

No sooner had I gotten in my car then the rain came hard. Leaving the parking lot, I heard this odd noise and noticed hail! It was hailing! What was going on? Would it clear up and dry off by the time I got to the Honda dealership? The drive home wasn’t promising: more rain and dark clouds all along the way. I could see sunny skies to the south, north and fortunately west of me.  But I wasn’t sure how long it would  take for the storm to pass overhead.

I got home and it was still sprinkling out. My ride picked me up (Hi Phil!), and we headed off to the dealership, where it was still raining. The sales guy who sold me the bike asked if I wanted to pick the bike up tonight with a intonation of disbelief in his voice. It may be sprinkling out, and the roads still a bit wet, but not even the fact that I really hadn’t ridden in the rain before was going to keep my from my new baby.

Besides, I only live 5 minutes from the dealership. So I told him yes.

About a  half hour later I was headed home on the bike, the rain had stopped, but the roads were still a bit wet.  I didn’t care at all: I had my new (to me) bike.  It’ll take a bit to get used to the different layout of it. As the Kawasaki had the foot levers straight down, unlike the Honda which has them out in front of me (and unlike sport bikes which has them behind you, the Kawa was a breed of her own). The gear shifter automatically returns on the Honda. Yes, I know that is supposed to happen on all bikes, but the Kawa has . . .issues. I would just lightly tap it with my foot to knock it down after shifting. With the Honda I can just crank the throttle back and mad shift. Ohhh boy is it fun. I’ll know what I’ll be doing tomorrow:

An open letter to Dave Sim:

Hello Dave,

I wanted to comment on some of the thoughts you put out in the June 21^th Blog & Mail (#283 for those keeping track of such things), to keep track of it all, David’s words are in italics and yours are in the Arial black font (and indented):

David writes: Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I removed you from the Wikipedia article on anti-feminism as a `noted’ anti-feminist. I tried to find out who did it, but couldn’t. You’re not `noted’ & even Margaret agreed.”

Well, you know, David, that gets into very awkward areas because I AM an anti-feminist: an unapologetic anti-feminist.

True. But I disagreed with the “noted” part not the anti-feminist part. Because in the context “noted” appeared to be ‘well known by the public’. You are indeed very well known within the comics industry, but to the, as the Cerebus Yahoo!Group likes to say, “mainstream media” you’re no Larry Summers, i.e. someone in the media eye for his beliefs.

By Margaret, I assume you mean Margaret Liss. Margaret is incredibly helpful with her www.cerebusfangirl.com website but she does have a (how would you describe it?) Dave Sim blind spot?  It’s very possible that someone doing a cerebusfangirl website is one of the few things that kept me out of jail for the last few years.

I doubt my website is that well known to accomplish that task.

I’m not happy about the fact that men have to have women vouching for them in our world, but I am not unmindful that it is a fact of life and that apart from Margaret there have been no other women who would even consider vouching for me and none who have done so or would consider doing so as extensively and on their own initiative as Margaret did and as Margaret continues to do even though I’m sure she has paid a price for it. I mean, straight out and in the open.

Any price I’ve paid for it is greatly made up by what I’ve gotten from Cerebus and your essays over the years as far as educational and entertainment purposes.

There are other women readers out there, and a few on the Yahoo!Group that occasionally “delurk” to contribute something meaningful to the discussion at hand.  They most assuredly would vouch for you, though I cannot speak to their reasons for not doing so as I have done, other then perhaps they have a life outside the internet. :)

“Speaking of Margaret, I may have scared her off after our e-mails about forming a future Legacy/Dave Sim & Gerhard Awareness Group when I told her that I’d use it as a springboard to promote Christianity. But still, I found her to be very polite & one of your biggest Cerebus supporters.”

Well, yes, I’m sure you did scare her off. Remember that with the Cerebus Yahoos (all but three of them) it’s all they can do to get their minds wrapped around the fact that Dave Sim believes in God and that he talks about God openly.

Your journey to the top of the mountain, so to speak, took you a while and was partially visible to the public eye via Cerebus and the essays contained therein. As I’m on my own personal journey, I rather just keep my beliefs about God that: personal. For some reason I find my beliefs on God a very personal subject and I usually would rather not discuss them with anyone; hence why I’m usually quiet on such topics.  I enjoy your openness about your beliefs, and I read your essays on the subject with what I hope is an open mind. But I must find out for myself, and not accept your beliefs as my own just because they are ‘Dave Sim’s Beliefs. I mean no repudiation of you or your beliefs by that, just that I hope to discover them for myself.

I rather have a Cerebus Legacy Group or a Dave Sim & Gerhard Awareness Group for promoting Cerebus, your essays and your other works. Those essays include whatever you’ve written, from Tangent to the Notes From The President. I don’t see that as promoting Christianity, but promoting your work. Let the people read the books, the essays, and make up their own minds what to think. Some will no doubt come to the same conclusions you did in Latter Days and in issue #289 / 290 and others might not.

As a possible member of such a Foundation (or group), I wouldn’t actively promote Christianity, I would put your works out there for others to read and discover and as I say, let the people decide for themselves. Which is what I attempt to do with my website: I’ve “published” on the web your essays from Tangent to Islam, My Islam (requested by David Carrington of my old post, Fort Monroe). Hopefully people will come across them via the different search engines and links and read them, digest them and think about them. It is the least I could hope to do with the website.

That and sell more Cerebus phonebooks.

Ever have one of those days that you feel like you’ve been beaten with a crowbar? Like someone took your brain and used them as a soccer ball? The same way I would feel after a grueling heat transfer test where it felt like my brain had turned into a slurry and leaked out my nose.

I don’t know why I feel like I’ve been worn down to the nub, to the last bit of lead in the pencil before you just toss it in the trash, but I do. Work hasn’t been all that . . .difficult or rushrush. Sure I’ve had some doozies in the past week, stuff that makes me go: how the hell did you get a job here and you are you sleeping with so you keep it? But nothing that I think should make me feel the way I do.

Of course this past week has been a very full one.  Work has consistently been . . .going, from one thing to another. I thought my major account was going to give me a break, so I could work on some process stuff rather then manufacturing  things, and then it picks right up again. And the personal life? Just as busy with the bike stuff.

I’ve still got KT’s cd on constant rotation in my car and on my computer when I’m not watching the dvds netflix sends my way. Pretty much every song on the CD is enjoyable – though I’m finding that black horse and the cherry tree is one of my least faves. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good song, but the rest of the songs on the CD? Even better.

There was a debate at work today about personal rights – how I believe in the legalization of anything an adult wants to do to their own body or that two (or more!) consenting adults want to do together. At one point I shouted with a raised fist “Get your laws off my body”. It actually felt good to have quick retorts and answers to all the strawmen arguements brouht up against my opinions. While I know I didn’t get anyone to change their mind about anything, hopefully I expanded their world view a bit in that there are people like myself out there. People who belive that grown adults are more then capable of making their own decisions, and even more so in the privacy of their own domicle.

It all started because of talk about the motorcycle helmet law. I was surprised how worked up I got over the debate – my face was flush, my heart was  racing and it felt good to spew forth my opinions and retort their “counter-arguements”. Even more so then in some internet forum or message board, doing it in Real Life was a blast. One of the ladies said I should be a politician, and that made me giggle – a single agnostic lesbian as President?

We could only get so lucky. Heh.