I’m leaving for South By Southwest tomorrow! My awesome job is sending me there for the interactive portion of the festival. It will basically be a week of listening to people talk about the internet, drinking with colleagues and playing video games (there’s an arcade!). Expect a post on the future of comics when I return.

A few items I wanted to mention, since I’m terrified of flying and wanted to cement some sort of legacy in case the plane explodes:

• I released a new album last month! It’s called Lake Poems. My brother and I wrote and recorded the whole thing during the month of February for the RPM Challenge. It’s almost like chiptune music mixed with baroque era instruments. I dig it, and we’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback, so please check it out. You can download the entire album for free. If you like it and want to stay updated on music we do (there’s another release coming at the end of March), consider our Facebook fan page. Because I haven’t gotten around to setting up a real website yet.
• I got a book deal! Quirk Books, known for the insanely awesome Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, will be releasing a book I’ve been writing with my best friend. It should be available at your local bookstore in May of 2011. I can’t say much about it, but I promise that it will be absolutely hilarious. Also: my editor said that I’m the youngest author ever signed to Quirk, which gave me +10 to Ego.
• I got into a fight with my mom this morning! And I feel really bad. Sorry, mom.

If you’re attending SXSW and want to meet up, I’ll be there from March 12th to March 16th. As with any convention, you can spot me by my Virgin of Guadeloupe pin I got from Attract Mode last year.

This thing has become a wardrobe staple. It’s sort of integral to defining my look: dirty hobo wearing a Virgin of Guadeloupe pin. Otherwise known as Derelicte.

Happy Holidays! I will use any excuse I can to show this Bacon McFeast video. It defines Christmas for me. Well, that and the calendar.

As a gift for my parents and grandmother, I recorded an album of holiday songs with my friends. It was super fun and I learned a lot about the true spirit of blah blah blah. You can download it here if you’d like, but only do so if you like Christmas music. Because that’s definitely what it is. Christmas music. About Jesus and stars and trees and junk. With glockenspiels and harpsichords.

This was over twenty years ago? Holy shit, I’m old.

Earlier this week, Tiny Cartridge did a quick post on a bunch of BS about Nintendo signing with Nvidia for some sort of technical thing that I don’t understand. But in that post, there was a video embedded: the video for L’Trimm’s Cars That Go Boom.

Dude! L’Trimm was awesome! I haven’t even thought of this song since I was in elementary school. I remember my awkward fifth grade dance, where I asked a girl named Valerie to be my Valentine. She declined (due to her involvement with a rat-tailed boy named Timothy) and called me fat, which has pretty much set the tone for all my future relationships. Every time I ask a girl out, I just remember Valerie making fun of my sweatpants. I’m so sad.

Uh, but… I’ve been listening to this song all week, and it’s fantastic. Except my current age means that when I picture “cars that go boom,” they’re occupying busy intersections in middle eastern countries.

Have you ever been in a situation that was so embarrassing that you actually started praying for an apocalyptic event, as the loss of all human life on this planet would be preferable to the discomfort you were experiencing at that moment? Let me entertain you with a story!

I volunteer at a chiptune show once a month in Philadelphia called 8static. It’s pretty awesome, and I’ve been a fan for a long time, so I love being able to help out with taking tickets, hanging posters or whatever to support the show. One of the perks of volunteering is that I can bring a guest for free. My friend Ryan heard about the audio mixing workshop before this month’s show and wanted to check it out. So he was going to be my plus one, as the French say.

Except Ryan was really late and completely missed the workshop. His excuse was that he had to stop and eat an entire pizza on the way. When he did finally show up, he was obviously drunk. No Carrier (who organizes the event) came over and I introduced them to one another. Ryan starts pointing to me dramatically, saying “I love this guy!” No Carrier tried to be nice, with a reply along the lines of “Uh, yeah, he’s great.”

Then Ryan decides to up the ante: “No, you don’t understand. I love him sexually.” There was an accompanying hand motion.

I guess he thought it would be a hilarious thing to say. It wasn’t. I wanted to die. I’m surrounded by tons of really cool musicians and some guy in a soiled Nike t-shirt is talking about doing me. And he’s my guest.

On top of that, he was trash talking open mic performers. “That dude needs to get his head out of his ass! That was terrible!” Keep in mind that 8static is hosted in a rather intimate venue, so when he said such things, everyone could hear him.

After two sets of that, we had to leave. As in, Ryan decided that he was tired and we had to leave. So I didn’t get to see Covox or Nullsleep play. The entire ride back to South Philly I just kept thinking “Oh man… is this really my friend?” But I suppose true friendship extends beyond the limitations of common sense, civility and hygiene.

Besides, it could have been much worse. Ryan could have pulled out his cell phone and shown everyone video evidence of his loving me sexually. That would have been awkward.