12/30/2001:

I know PVP did a series of Tivo strips a little while ago, but I swear, this was written mostly before. (The Xmas framing device in panel 1 was written tonight.) I love Tivo. I have not actually purchased mine yet, but I'm sure that that day will be a good day.

The thing about the red light (the recording in progress light) is that, yes, I realize that red is the assumed "record" color. But since the Tivo stays on all the time, it's menacing when you enter a dark room with a glowing red eye. To say nothing of the black orb on the front of the Philips unit. Eek.

Today, I got to see Sil for the first time in 3 months. Yay! Speaking of friends I haven't seen in 3 months, my roommate, Khai, from the summer was also in town, so I came back down to Chicago to see him. It's been a fun few days and now I'm headed back to Milwaukee for New Year's.

Ah, New Year's. This will be the last blurb of this year (we promise new Sil art for the 1 year anniversary!). I must admit to not being incredibly excited about this year's celebration, but hey, it'll be a fun evening. Rick and Jason and I are cooking for a bunch of friends, and there's all this drama over who's really invited and who got to pick who to invite and all this crap that I didn't really want to think about. Eh. We'll see. These things have a way of working out. Unless it explodes into lots of yelling. Either way, I'm going to sit on the sidelines, drink wine, and be mellow. Way mellow.

I got back into the apartment on Thursday and immediately headed out for that plastic window sealing stuff. The place was so drafty. Now all the windows are covered. I feel so domestic. I don't use a hair dryer, however, so they're not totally sealed yet (the heat tightens up the cellophane) and so I woke up this morning with a light draft over my face. I would be better at all this home DIY stuff if I were more patient. As it is, I didn't really clean the window frames as well as I could have, so the ones in my room aren't especially tightly sealed. It's better than the gale force winds that used to buffet my face as I slept, although I still woke up pressed into a fetal ball. Perhaps I should move my bed to a different wall (bad feng shui though) or better yet, sleep in front of the downstairs radiator.

And on that note, I bid you a Happy New Year. In a day or so.

kip