Quick links to where I'm more often found than here:

http://hipsterdadsbookshelf.blogspot.com - Book reviews

http://reprintthis.blogspot.com - Lost and out-of-print comics discussed

http://thrillpoweredthursday.blogspot.com - 2000 AD, it's the Galaxy's Greatest Comic!

Stop by and see me sometime!

I took a personal day today... I was up for most of the night trying to work out a tactful way to get my ex-wife to give more attention to the children than she does on those rare occasions that she sees them, without her getting defensive about it. You'd think that eleven years of marriage would have taught us how to communicate, and you'd be wrong.

Spent Saturday with my sweetie in Athens... I bought some folk art from Chris Hubbard and I am very happy with my purchase!!

The kids and I are back from Canada. I drove from Toronto to Knoxville in a day! I don't recommend anybody ever do that; it was a little wearing...

I missed my girlfriend something fierce. She's coming down from Athens on Thursday to visit. The kids and I are going to a Georgia Force game on Saturday night, and that's about all of major consequence going on here.

If you haven't seen Smitten's new set yet, well, you should. My, my!

Grrrr, I'm so bad about updating this... the problem seems to be having such limited computer time for this site at home with the kiddos running around. I shouldn't be spending time on the computer anyway when I should be reading and playing with them, but when I am at the PC, I probably shouldn't be looking at this site with them peering over my shoulder...

Anyway, that girl in Athens and I have been a couple for a little over two months, and friends for thirteen years! She's coming down tomorrow and we're going to spend all weekend in bed, I think. Oh, and go to see the Georgia Force game. That too.

I'm currently boring the heck out of LiveJournal, which I *can* visit from work, here: http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/ Ta, ta!

Somehow my blasted daughter has lost one of her CDs, and made the very bad decision to blame one of her friends for it.

It's been a very good few weeks. I got lotsa money back in taxes and I'm working towards finishing my 2000 AD/Megazine collection - only 89 issues to go! - and I've got a very nice valentine weekend planned with the girl in Athens I'm seeing. Work's going good...

At some point, I should probably record the ongoing public drama foibles of the morons I kicked out of my life a year ago. It's pretty gratifying to know that all the shenanigans that screwed things up back then just keep happening without you having anything to do with it anymore.

The kids and I were searching on YouTube last night for clips from Laugh-In, after a parody clip on The Simpsons confused and intrigued my son. We found some clips of Goldie Hawn acting ridiculous and talking a mile a minute, and both immediately agreed that this was exactly how the Hipster Daughter will be as a teen. She's like that now, only short. She got infuriated and embarassed and wouldn't talk to us after that, even though she kept sneaking grins.

I joined the 21st century before Christmas at last with an iPod, which I've wanted for almost two years. So that's pretty much all I've done the last few evenings is rip CDs.

Waikiki's new set is up and makes me want to get to the beach. (AND IS VERY HOT. ) Maybe this summer we will go down to Savannah for a day. This girl I'm seeing has family on St Simon's Island, so who knows... if things are decent that far along...?

The Hipster Daughter's teacher phoned me at work today. That's never a good sign.

My kids are little supergeniuses. She, for instance, is in the second grade and reads on a fifth grade level. She's incredibly insightful and resourceful and clever. And yesterday, she slugged a friend on the playground over some perceived slight.

So the teacher sent a note home about her conduct and my girlchild conspired to lose it. Then this morning, rather than crossing her fingers and praying that her teacher would forget about it, she marched straight to the teacher's desk and told her a whopper about losing it through a big hole in her bookbag.

I guess I should be impressed that she'd take the time to change backpacks last night - she has three - in order to reinforce her fib, but somehow I'm not impressed with any of it.

Darn kid.

I think I'll just go ogle Asrai's new set and forget about it until tomorrow...

I had an email conversation with the little green girl that I've been seeing, and we confirmed that our chemistry really isn't more than friendship chemistry after all, which is nice as I didn't wish to hurt her. Still, I think that's the way it should be. We dated for a little better than five months and shared a lot of experiences, and did not have a single argument or disagreement. She says I'm the best guy friend she's ever had.

In fact, we dated for almost exactly as long a period as Mrs. Ballard and I dated last year, which, shmoopiness and sex aside, were among the worst months of my life, marked by constant arguing and fighting and her passive-agressive nonsense. But this, by honest comparison, has ended perfectly pleasantly and I couldn't be happier about it having such a relaxed and angst-free segueway into friendship. I hope we can remain friends for a long time.

...especially since I've also been seeing an old friend in Athens, and that's already gotten, as we say, "serious," and there's more of a potential future attached to that. She asked me in late September whether I was still taking applications for stepmother, and that her biological clock has begun ringing, and, well...

She stayed the night last weekend, after she made me banana bread and ginger cookies for my birthday. The kids and I are going to see her and to buy comics and Christmas gifts in a little bit. Hurry up, 9.20, I'm anxious to get on the road.

I've been seeing someone for about five months now, and while I'd already decided it didn't have a real future, Thanksgiving really cemented it.

I love the holidays, I just hate Thanksgiving. This seems to happen every year. Bah, humbug. Next year, Waffle House and hockey. And NOTHING ELSE.