Alright, here are some bro pages- on the second, please imagine the foghorn sound effect from Ren & Stimpy, it was what I was humming to myself as I was drawing.

And– I want to be honest with you here, readers.  I may be skipping some updates.  Like, um, this week.  I’m not stopping production, or taking a hiatus, or any of that noise, but right now there are some things I have to take care of which are… really important and I have to pay attention to those needs first.  So!  Thank you always for reading and enjoying and being so so patient with me and I will do my best to get these pages out in a timely manner, although it may not be on Mondays, and it may not be every week.  I will, of course, update when the pages go up here.

Short and quick because I have to sleep!  My phone’s name is Winterphone and it plays the Game of Thrones theme song because why wouldn’t I? The Cult of Beauty is probably one of the best exhibits I have been to and if you’re in SF/a city where it will be arriving someday then pleeeeease do yourself a favor and see it, I will definitely be going at least once more before it leaves the city.  I have listened to Nicki Minaj exclusively for almost two days now and while I am not proud of this fact I am not ashamed either.  I know that you may not want to know the intimate details of my lady times, readers, but you read it and now you cannot un-read it.

Another week, another Brodown.  The making of this page was made with the aid of Merlin, the BBC series about .. Merlin.  I don’t have enough words to describe my feelings about that show, and most of them are bad.  It’s lucky I enjoy bad BBC television- but it’s to an extent, Merlin!  And you pushed that extent several times.  So when I came to the end of season 3 (all that’s available on netflix) I heaved a sigh of relief- because I finished just in time to watch some new GAME OF THRONES.

I have feelings about Melisandre and they are feelings of a) trepidation and b) badass.  I’ve read the books but she is still a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery.  I like her, but the religious fever makes me uneasy?  I sort of want the Old Gods to smite her blasphemous ass down, but at the same time she’s pretty amazing and I want her to live to the end and offer council against never ending night?  That aside, I really, really enjoy the actress they picked for her- she’s not the Melisandre I envisioned in my head, but as someone who loves seeing other interpretations, I love it, I love her.

And, Arya … Arya, light of my life.  Say what you will about GRR Martin, but the ladies born of his world are pretty amazing.  I basically hate and love all of them with fair equality- except Arya who I love fiercely and without question.

I saw the Hunger Games and for once I was not disappointed by anything coming out of the movie- perfection.  I heard there was some fan outcry, and I overheard some of it myself, coming out of the theater-  I try to cut people slack because I was the person who got really angry because movies were not exactly like books.  .. But that was in high school, and I made a lot of stupid decisions in high school.

Enough about the Hunger Games though, it’s fifteen seconds of fame are over now that THE LEGEND OF KORRA HAS BEGUN, screams.  Avatar TLA is one of the only cartoons I have seen lately that reminds me of my own childhood- when cartoons were layered, have over-arching plots, taught lessons and could be enjoyed by adults and children alike.  Naturally my excitement over a continuation of the series could not be contained by mere words.  Especially when Nick made the very wise decision not to drag out the original cast but instead time skip this mess and give us new characters, new plots and new conflicts to follow.  A++++++

Finally, I don’t know if I’ve made it too clear yet here- but my roommate is equal parts brilliant and very scary.  Her farts are always a hot topic around the house (no pun or further fart related humor intended) and I .. I only wish I was joking about the hair.

No Brodown page this week, and for that I apologize- my weekend was much busier than I expected it to be.  Instead, here’s an updated line-up I did of the main cast.

Saturday was Saint Patrick’s Day and aside from some extra greenishness I did not celebrate one bit.  Like I need a holiday to drink beer!

And then Sunday my pal Steven came over and wowed me with his graffiti/illustration.  I think I need to mention here how important/amazing it is that basically.. all my friends are creative in one way or the other.  And not just creative, but really good at being creative.  I am routinely impressed and very proud of my friends for their endeavors, I only wish they’d update more/showcase more of their things..

Yooou can totally get library books on your nook/kindle/ipad/whatever.  Just in case you didn’t know.  Because I didn’t, and then I started, and it is awesome and I rented and read Will Grayson, Will Grayson which I talked about yesterday and which made my day on Thursday.  But today has been excitement about THE HUNGER GAMES !!

I have a conflicted love for the Hunger Games (but what do I love 100% unconditionally, really) in which I think the first book is rad, the second book is okay, the third book is a complete disappointment which bursts open the flaws in Suzanne Collins’ technique and leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth.  But because I am an adult, I didn’t start a grassroots campaign to change the ending of Collins’ intellectual material, Mass Effect fans.

Digressing, a huge part of why the last book failed was because Collins was trying to describe the scope of war and rebellion through the eyes of an ineffectual character who had no real idea what was going on or what she was doing.  Because- cage combat aside, Katniss has literally no idea of what to do in a real life war situation and it shows in a way that is painfully obvious.  Which is– you know, understandable, except for the fact that we are treated to a cavalcade of truly idiotic decisions stemming from her ignorance and none of them are called out because we are privy only to the innermost emotions and rationalizations of Katniss Everdeen, not all the other people who are wondering why they are following this massive fuckup. Listen I can take her mistakes- in fact, I relish them whole heartedly because it shows she’s not a super machine from the future sent to vanquish foes?  But I cannot take the sheer ridiculous blind faith everyone else has in her, when it leads to the eventual and obvious demise of people who trusted her.  People who should have known better, and maybe they did, but we’ll never know because we’re stuck in goddamn Katniss’ head all the time!

First person narrative is so easy and perfect for YA fiction because, well- how hard do you have to try, really?  Not at all- until you come to the crescendo of your franchise and realize that there’s not much that a limited character like Katniss can do or say about something as huge as an society being torn down.  With that in mind, I am really excited for the movies to not be through the POV of Katniss and thus be able to capture the scope of what is really going down.  There’s a story in there- it’s not the great narrative of our generation or anything, but it’s entertaining and badass and empowering (to a point) and I would love to see it taken out of the context of Katniss’ brain so that we can all enjoy it.  Dear, the Hunger Games movie:  please do this for me, please deliver me this story stripped of it’s narration.  The potential for truly awesome times is high, I can only hope you (and Jennifer Lawrence) realize this.  Yours, Ruth Halloran.

So there was all that, but this is what’s important: this book is a pretty spot on capsule of high school life for the awkward kids, none of this revenge of the nerds (alright, college, I get it) or ferris bueller bs with parades and grand standing.  Just sort of uncomfortable situations and intentional/unintentional hurtfulness and awkward conversations and maybe just one grand gesture.  And the necessity of love and friendship and love IN friendship during formative years, friends by choice or necessity, etc.  It’s really hard for me to read a book about high school without feeling it’s either too ridiculous and dramatic or just so incredibly pretentious.  I think comics can skirt this line very effectively but in narrative it is so much harder.  This book however- pretty spot on job.  Completely worth the two hours it took to read it, and um, free from your local library!!  Where you can unleash the world of your imagination ..

SIGH, Kingdom Hearts.  Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts ..

I recently replayed this game and it was just as full of emotions for me as it was the first time around.  Haters to left, I say, because, pinnacle of gaming, really.  Perfect game, perfect character (Sora, let me count the ways) perfect everything. I think in a few years time when kids refuse to play KH1 because it’s too outdated I will finally feel the bitter twinge that old school gamers feel towards me when I admit that I love Chrono Cross only about a thousand times more than Chrono Trigger.  It’s okay, I knew I would get my comeuppance eventually.

I didn’t want to put any Roxas bits in there because I really hate the fuckfest that is KH2 and I didn’t want that to mar my .jpg worth of feelings for KH1.  But after all, I did love the storyline of KH2 that wasn’t just a rehash of every single world I saved in the first game so Roxas stays.  I’m still sort of messing with colors for this guy, entertaining the notion of getting prints done up for conventions, but we’ll see.  I don’t know if people really care about Kingdom Hearts right now- I know Square certainly doesn’t, or they’d start work on Kingdom Hearts 3!! I had to close my psd file, though, because it was getting to be too much and I couldn’t work on other things while it was open.  So for now, it is done!  It is over, it is my homage to an imaginary character from an imaginary world that has impacted my real life in ways that would be embarrassing to admit in public.

Except I just did oh no!!!

SATURDAY I went.. clubbing.  Yes.  That awful, uncomfortable experience where you pay entirely too much money to drink booze which doesn’t get you drunk enough to enjoy the novelty of not being able to hear what anyone around you is saying.  I think the last time I went clubbing was three years ago and I can wait another three years to endure it again.  Or not because I’m already Too Old For This Shit.  Young people don’t mind my grumpiness, if hard pressed I will admit that I had a great time and had some great beers and you should too.

But Saturday was followed by Sunday which was all about the Dancin Shins(tm).  It took me days to recover.

San Franciscans (and.. Burlingamer’s, I guess) have you been to Shabu House yet?  You should correct this oversight if you have yet to enjoy the experience of eating ALL THE BEEF and ALL THE NOODLES.

Two simple pleasures in life: paper place mats in restaurants and perfect parking spaces.  On street cleaning days!!  The parking ticket was not in any way related to the perfect parking space, just to clarify.  Parking space remains perfect.  Parking ticket is still bullshit.

I have more purses than I know what to do with (a lie) but Coach was having a massive 48 hour sale and what’s a girl supposed to do, alright?  I mean, hello, metallic florescent blue handbag with shoulder straps??  My life knew perfection for a brief, shining moment.  Now I wait anxiously for it to arrive in the mail.

I don’t know what to say here.  I need toilet paper, for reasons, and I found some.  I found it first thing in the morning on Friday when I needed it the most, ahem, and really, it set the mood for the entire rest of the day.  It’s just— when you think things are bad, right?  They’re not because you could have gone the day without toilet paper.  Just imagine.