Gaaaaaaah! Am I really back here in Madison? It seems like an eternity that I've been on the road.

Life here is as busy as ever. I'm slogging my way through a giant e-mail backlog: if I owe you a reply, it should get there -- sooner or (most likely) later, true, but it WILL get there.

In the meantime, the weather is fine, Madison is dandy, the kitties are happy and I'm just glad to be back with my sweetie, the lovely and talented Judith.

Huge deadlines loom on the horizon. Lotsa stuff to get caught up on. Not a lot of time to be too philosophical or wax too poetic right now, so here's what's new this month...

A few things I'm Grooving On...

• The Mystery Men movie. After reading a few VERY nasty reviews, I was shocked and delighted at what a good time I had at it. Paul Reubens seemed the weak link in an otherwise solid cast.
• Issues #1 and #2 of Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey comic book (Dark Horse). A really funny, if slightly dark and twisted, comic. Very good writing.
• Painted from Memory, the Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach CD (Mercury). It sounds hokey, but has four absolutely classic songs on it ("In the Darkest Place," "Toledo," "The Sweetest Punch," "God Give Me Strength")...and the rest aren't too shabby, either.
• An original piece of artwork Aaron Williams gave me at GenCon. His strip, "Nodwick," is one of the funniest things around, and appears regularly in DRAGON magazine.
• The fact that my pal Steve Marmel just taped his first-ever HBO special! His stand-up comedy is absolutely hilarious. You can also catch him from time to time on Comedy Central's "Make Me Laugh" and "Premium Blend."
• All the junk food from around the world people have been sending me. Thanks in PARTICULAR to Magnus Karlsson from Sweden, who's hooked me on these things called "Ahlgrens Bilar," a sedan-shaped candy that's apparently a tradition over there; to Steve Jackson who brought back lots of "Cheese Twisties" from an Australian trip; and to Trina Cairns and Hendrik Mell who kept my Jelly Baby cravings from reaching titanic proportions (and congrats to both on their upcoming nuptials). And thanks to all the folks at the conventions who dropped stuff off. There's a REASON the DORK TOWER World Tour is called "Will Game For Food..."

Enough shamelessness! See you in a month!