2/21/2001:

Wow... I look so evil in that third panel.

Anyway, this marks the return of Rick. I guess after 2 strips, he's really a part of the cast (click here for the last strip he was in). He really is like this. We drove to a restaurant not 3 blocks away from my place not 2 weeks ago. Anyway, for all of Rick's friends who he's cajoled into visiting today... welcome one and all.

The terrible truth of the matter, however, is that this year, I've been pretty bad about driving short distances myself. Last quarter, I drove to my classes. I rationalized it because I had to get way down on South Campus from North Campus and then get back. North South North. So I told enough people that and they forgave me my slothful tendencies.

I don't drive this quarter because I have class 4 days a week (the horror!) and so finding parking spots at the right times is tough. Last quarter, parking was easy because I'd be coming and going at odd times.

Anyway... what's on the agenda. We've been getting loads of really wonderful fanmail lately. Keep it up, 'cause it helps us stay motivated to keep this up.

In other news, I won an eBay auction today! I love how eBay gets you so into things. If you lose after bidding a few times, then you're not a true man, or something. I told myself that I was going to pay no more than 25$ for this thing but you can see the sniping war that went on here. You can see us all waiting for the week to go by, casually testing the waters with our little bids, hoping that the auction will end quietly with a low price.

Then, Feb 19, wucisong22 launches a surprise attack a day before auction close! dbzgohan responds. Then comes venusblade this morning with a high bid. Venusblade, with only one prior transaction, clearly has no idea how this thing works. Along comes rogue_two at 9:00 this morning. He (or she) is experienced... bidding strange cents amounts in an effort to sniff out venusblade's limit, but not actually win the auction. The pot grows too high. rogue_two drops out of the bidding, but not before jacking up the price a little.

I didn't have Mat Sci lab today so I went down to the computer lab to win this frickin' thing. Saw venusblade with a bid of 23.84. So I went to 27. Outbid! Whoa. $30. Still not there. $31 won it for me but, stupid venusblade. Sigh. I'm sure I could have gotten out at about $25 if it'd been just rogue_two and I.

Why doesn't eBay turn auctions into war stories? I'd read them. I've had numerous conversations with Jason about bids and the insane amount of emotion they can elicit. I also remember freshman year when my friend, Fernando, found eBay. He stayed up all night bidding and then realized he wanted nothing he'd bid on and so was in cold sweat throughout the day, waiting, hoping that someone would outbid him on his collectible pieces of trash.

Oh, what was I bidding on, you ask? The Rurouni Kenshin Fighting Game, of course. Only came out in Japan. Very cool. If you haven't seen Kenshin... you should check it out. Here's the Google Directory category with fansites and other cool things.

K, enough linkiness.

-Kip