Saturday morning at the comic shop - it's full of youngsters & chunky fan-boys; they're having a sale. A new Ninja High School (#63) is out; I have dozens of issues in the archives, including all the early ones; however a few years ago Ben Dunn grew weary of it and delegated writing and drawing chores to his minions, and the results are paltry in comparison to his original. So I avoid any but the true Ben Dunn NHS - in recent issues he's been running his own sub-story in the last few pages, as a serial ("Jeremy and Asrial...Alone in Space!") but unfortunately the new one lacks another installment, so the only thing I bought was the new Jeff Smith's "Bone" (the fifth anthology: "Rockjaw - Master Of The Eastern Border") for my god-daughter V. She glommed onto Bone (to my surprise) when she discovered the first anthology in the back of my car. So V always gets the Bone books, as they come out. (The first is actually the only one I read, and it was good. I haven't dug into the subsequent editions because now they're gifts & I don't want to mess 'em up.)

Next weekend I'll be entertaining my friend G, who'll be here on business, and soon after that, Z will be in town - her mission is making a cyber-romance work in meat-space, so unfortunately she may not have much time for me. It's always fun showing off California to friends from Back East, something I did in the south with both of these during my LA days. Once, driving around my Hermosa Beach neighborhood, as the ocean came into view Z exclaimed that "It's too nice to live here - you don't deserve to live here!"

I'm leaving now for another date with "A", the dental hygienist. The plan is a nine-mile hike through Wunderlich park, up to the ridge called Skyline - kind of a "Jack & Jill" deal. Stay tuned for cryptic details, concerning who came tumbling down after.