I have added my technological and biological distinctiveness to the hivemind, so feel free to follow me on the Twitter @ARobTwit, if you're into that sort of thing.
I confess I still do not understand all the ins and outs of the Twitter. All the shortcuts and codewords engineered to make old people feel dumb are doing their trick!

This Sunday at 3pm I'll be at the big King Con in Brooklyn, USA, promoting my brand new book A Kidnapped Santa Claus! Come on by and say hello, won't you?

http://www.kingconbrooklyn.com/

iFanboy's Josh Flanagan sits down for a lengthy chat with me about Freddie & Me, Ace-Face, Ink Panthers, and more on the latest Talksplode podcast.

Originally published at Mike Dawson Comics.

http://www.mikedawsoncomics.com/the-ink-panthers-show-episode-22/

Who's head is heavier: mine or Mike Dawson's? Listen to the podcast and find out that plus many other interesting facts!

Yes, you guessed correctly. That's a picture of Mike and Alex engaged in a "who has the heaviest head?" contest. Give a listen to find out who won! Comments Welcome!

Subscribe in iTunes

Originally published at Mike Dawson Comics.

I saw a commercial for Wal-Mart or something today and they were talking about Christmas layaway plans. I at once scoffed and felt guilty. I know how sick of Christmas people will be in another month (!) so I resolve to exercise some restraint when it comes to promoting my new book (A Kidnapped Santa Claus). Well, until December, at least. Then the green fuzzy gloves come off.

I know yesterday was Halloween and it's a little early to start hyping a book about Christmas but: my newest book, A Kidnapped Santa Claus technically goes on sale this week. I know, I am now a part of the marketingization of Our Lord's Birthday. Hey, I got vet bills to pay for.

In any case, here's the official info with a fouteen page preview. That's almost a quarter of the whole book!

http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061782404

(Previously on the blog: Alex and Kristen's cat, Krimpet, has started yowling in the middle of the night, keeping everyone up).

One thing I've noticed about this cat thing is that people with chidlren take a cruel delight in hearing me talk about how we have not had a good night's sleep in weeks because of her behavior. Fair enough, I suppose, since I imagine I don't come across as very sympathetic when I hear their stories ("It's not like you didn't know it would cry" I say coldly as I sip my wine).

I don't know if her yowling has decreased or I'm just building up a tolerance or am just plain exhausted but I seem to notice her less. But as I see it as much as I would like to I don't think it's practical to assume I will be able to take half an ambien every night for as long as Krimpet lives, so further experiements on my end are required. My latest scheme: White Noise. I downloaded an mp3 and have set up my ipod so that it will repeat on a loop. I tested it out while Kristen had the stupid Yankee game on and I was quite pleased at the result. Hopefully, the mild discomfort of sleeping with the ear buds in (on?) will be outweighed by the soothing sounds of white noise.

Ten years ago a girl I worked with at Barnes & Noble invited me over to her place to watch The Simpsons halloween special. Ten years later, we got married on that same date. Today is the five year anniversary of that wedding! Coincidence??

Last night's experiment was a mixed success. As predicted, Wrigley was none too pleased about not being allowed to sleep in the bed with us but it went better than I expected. He whimpered at first, and would try to jump into the bed but gave up after a few minutes. He repeated this several times througout the night but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

Of course, this was one night Krimpet did not try to come into the bed, preferring to sleep on the rocking chair instead. She did yowl a bit around 4am but it wasn't as bad as on previous nights. So, nothing definititve yet but we're optimistic.

The other puzzle we're trying to figure out with her is her food. We've been keeping her food bowl on the counter, to prevent other pets who are not her from eating it. But lately, probably because she's getting old, she doesn't jump up on her own and we usually just pick her up. This could be another reason for her crying--she wants to eat in the middle of the night but wants us to lift her onto the counter--but that can't be it entirely (sometimes we'll put her up there and she'll eat a bit, then jump down and resume yowling).
Still, we figre we're going to have to figure out a different way of handling her food. How can we set it up so that she can get to her food but the pug can't? She's only slightly smaller than he is so. She can still jump a bit better than he can but if there's food at stake he's been known to pull off jawdropping leaps.

Riveting!

http://www.mikedawsoncomics.com/the-ink-panthers-show-episode-21/

SPOOKtacular episode 21 is SCREAMING for you to listen to it! In this one, Grumpy panther lays down the law as to which Halloween monsters are acceptable, the Loudest Panther howls about the TMNT being sold for $600 to Nick and Gags figures out the perfect costume for his one year-old daughter: Judge Sotomayor! It will scare the death out of you!!!

Okay, we're trying another experiment since the valium was a total bust (this is a follow up to this morning's post about our cat).

Some people advised that we try letting Krimpet sleep with us and it got me thinking. She actually has been sleeping in the bed with us for years. Her routine was to climb into bed with us for awhile and fall asleep. Then, at some point she would move over to the rocking chair, where, ironically, she probably doesn't get jostled around by sleeping giants.

It occurred to me that it's possible her yowling is in response to the dog also being allowed to sleep with us fairly recently. The times don't match up exactly, but perhaps she wasn't sure if this was a permanent situation and now that it is she's registering her complaint. In general, they ignore each other but in general you get the impression that cat has never been too excited about this dog idea and now that he's being allowed to sleep in the bedroom--traditionaly her realm--enough is enough.

That's my latest theory, anyway, so the plan is to allow the dog to sleep in the bedroom but keep him off the bed itself. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, this will help her relax more and things will go back to fairly normal. We're also giving her three chamomille treats to try to get her mellow.

Of course, we're also setting ourselves up for another challenge: the dog will undoubtedly be very unhappy to be demoted from the bed. But, dogs being dogs, they are more adaptable to following orders so hopefully he'll only whimper a bit and then get with the program. Please, please please let this be the case!

Stay tuned...

Hello BOILS and GHOULS, I've been DYING to post our newest SPOOKY All-Halloween episode. Don't make a GRAVE mistake, by missing this. But a word of advice, don't listen to it at FRIGHT... "Fright"... "Night"... get it? Night? Don't listen to it at night? I don't know... Comments Welcome!

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Originally published at Mike Dawson Comics.

Our cat is driving us insane.

Lately, for no reason we can figure out, she has taken to yowling in the middle of the night. We've tried different experiments to get her to stop--moving her food to easier spots, a spray made from cat pheromones that's supposed to mellow cats out, snacks treated with chamomille--but nothing seems to work. We took her to the vet yesterday on the off chance that there was some physical cause but she has a clean bill of health.

The vet sheepishly suggested it just might be old age. Krimpet is at least fourteen years old and while she hasn't lost weight she's definitely lost some muscle tone. The vet said that it might be a matter of her losing her night vision which is freaking her out (which would explain why she only yowls at night). It's also possible it's the first sign of looming dementia. As a short term solution, the vet gave us some valium (to give the cat, not for us!) in the hopes that it will relax her and we'll be able to get a good night's sleep for once.

Of couse, it had the opposite effect: it made her groggy and disoriented but not actually sleepy, so she spent even more time yowling. This has been going on for a few weeks now and the lack of sleep on our parts is definitely taking it's toll.

Anyone have any advice?