This is what happens when your brain shuts down from lack of oxygen.  Your face just goes thud to the nearest horizontal surface.

It’s similar to how I was feeling this morning, although facepalm is probably a better term for my own emotion.

You see, for years and years and years I have been writing what has been known as a “Family Letter.” Generally one a week, primarily trying to put a humorous spin on some event that had happened in the previous seven days.  It started out by mail, just to my parents, and then when fax machines came along, was widened to include some relatives, and then with the advent of email, was widened to include any friends who wanted to be on the list.  In other words, I have been blogging weekly for years; long before the word “blog” was even coined.

And once blogging actually became commonplace, people were always telling me: “You should start a blog!”  Like it was easy or something.

As Twain once remarked, the writing is the simple part; it’s the subject that is hard.  Give me a subject and I can easily bang out a couple hundred words on it whether I know anything about it or not.  It’s one of those skills you learn as a bullshit artist professional writer.

During the boys’ formative years, there was no shortage of subjects.  There was the time that this webcomic’s artist’s phone pocket-dialed me at 3AM whilst he was participating in a drug binge at a Mexican hotel.  Or the time that I accidentally set his younger brother on fire during an effects shoot.  Or the time my wife grew infuriated at the squirrels eating the apricots off our tree, so she went out and ate two dozen ripe apricots all by herself and had to spend the night sleeping on the toilet. All most amusing fodder, once the tumult and shouting had died down and everyone was okay.

But darn it, people grow up and get all responsible and stuff, and subjects began to grow scarce.

Then Max and I launched this comic.  Now sure, I could just let the comic itself be the post.  But I read a lot of webcomics myself (you can find some of my favorites listed in the lower right-hand side of this page) and I have to say I have always enjoyed the ones that include a bit of bloggage as well.  Shortpacked! generally has some discussion about toy collecting, and Penny Arcade has a blog that I actually enjoy more than the comic.  (The artwork is excellent but since it is about video games I usually find it incomprehensible until I read the accompanying News page.)

So as we launched this comic, I felt that I should try to step up to the plate here.  I fire up the WordPress and stare at the comic until something in Max’s artwork sparks an outpouring of words.

And so hey!  I’m finally doing a blog, just like all my friends and family told me I should!  And they can bookmark it, and read it every Tuesday and Thursday, and get a comic update along with it!  And we get page hits!  Everyone wins!

Except.  Except my wife told me this morning she misses the Family Letter.

“But I have a BLOG!” I said.  “Right there on teh Interwebs!  One click!  There you are!”

And she responded with that argument that females have used against males for all of time; that one trump card against which there is no appeal.  For it relies on Female Logic, which bears the same relationship to normal logic as antimatter does to normal matter, and with the same destructive properties.

“It’s not the same,” she said.

Which lead to my experiencing the face-thudding moment related at the beginning of this text.

But she is my love, who has put up with much from me over the years, including my writing about her having to sleep on the toilet.

So just for her, when the subject is suitable, there will be two versions of this blog.  One, the version you are reading, accompanied by comic artwork (and if you think it is violent now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.)

And another, carefully trimmed and edited and emailed, just like she prefers.  And without all the gory pictures.  Just for her.  And maybe my mom, and a few others.

Because that is what marriage is all about.


Bob out.