It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw

Just a quick post to say hello from Pittsburgh. Getting here did indeed take longer than you'd think, thanks to a delayed connecting flight in Newark (fake Newark in America, not the real Newark I cycled to and from the Sunday before last), so I'm quite justified in using the blog title I've been itching to use ever since booking the holiday in the first place.

It wasn't until getting to Pittsburgh that I realised I'd booked my flight home for the wrong date - I'm supposed to be back at work on Wednesday, but I don't get in to Birmingham airport until about nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. I'm still not sure whether to go to the trouble and expense of changing my flights, or the work-related trouble and hotel-related expense of hanging around America for another day after the convention ends and emailing my boss to ask for another day's holiday. That would mean working long, long hours on Thursday and Friday to catch up with everything I need to get done, and that's never a good thing to do when you're jetlagged.

Maybe I'll just stay in the USA permanently, living on the streets and earning a living as a busking memory man. That'll solve all my problems!

One more day to our holiday

Hooray, because I've only got one more working day to go before I fly away for a week. Actually, this holiday has rather snuck up on me, because I organised it so far in advance by my standards (more than a month ago!), I'd almost forgotten about it. I haven't packed yet, but I have made a mental note that I'll need to book a hotel near the airport for tomorrow night, so that's progress.

Oink

I've had an increasingly irresistible urge these past few weeks to go up to Dundee, find the DC Thomson offices and demand to know why they're reprinting old Rasher strips, of all things, in the Beano. I mean, is there really that much demand for Rasher? His own series was dropped many years ago now, and his appearances in Dennis's have been few and far between in the 21st century. If the Beano is so short of creative talent or the money to pay for it these days that they're forced to plunder the archives for page-filler, why not dredge up something really good? Rasher was always okay, but it was never anything special. And Calamity James isn't appearing in the comic at the moment, I'd love to see his early adventures get another airing! I tell you, if I ran the Beano, it'd be cheaper, funnier and would sell better. I've missed my vocation in life, I think...