12/22/2001:

I didn't post a Lord Of the Rings review on Wednesday because I elected to devote a strip to it instead.

I loved this movie. I must admit, I was expecting to be a bit more of a book snob, but it won me over within the first scenes of the Shire (the quick plot summary in the beginning was a bit more problematic, although the first swarm scenes of battle were pretty sweet). Like Strip Kip says, it was the mood and the sense of scale that really impressed me. My favorite shots were the ones where they'd get to a new area and it would show the characters and then the camera would spin around and dwarf the Fellowship in front of the new scene. I don't really feel qualified to make more cinematic remarks on the film. As a consumer though, I loved consuming this movie.

And, as to how life connects to the strip, I really don't know quite how I feel hitting strip 100. I don't want to make a big thing out of it, since our year anniversary is right around the corner in a week and a half. Strip 100 is just a number, a nice, juicy round number. But a year is time. A weighty glob of time. And so I don't want to make reaching this strip into a big ole epic achievement. Because there are plenty of strips who've hung on through 100. And many of them have been much more consistent than Scrubs. :-)

Speaking of that, Sil returns on the 23rd! Welcome her home! Is this the end of stick figures? Perhaps. I'm sure she'll want some time to get settled. I want some time to start writing strips with a text editor again, instead of Fireworks.

The house is full of people. I'm glad, it reminds me of Christmases past. I feel young again in the sense that everyone's older than me except for my baby niece. But I also feel older than ever, because I finally have some of my own life. When you're a kid, older relatives known everything about you. It feels mature to have some secrets.

I got wiped in Tekken Tag tonight. I'm reeling. I blame it on too much Dead or Alive timing in my fingertips. Actually, whenever I get wiped in Tekken, I blame DOA.

Oh well. I'm an unstoppable SSX Tricky machine.

Thanks for reading the past 100 strips. Here's to 100 more.

kip