That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today you get two Dear Diaries for the price of one! First, you’ll find out what happens when a household’s estrogen levels become dangerously low (this one is especially rough, but I ain’t apologizin – you’ll just have to figure out where those speech bubbles point for yourselves, goddamnit). Second, you’ll get a cartoonist addressing his audience directly in every panel.

What a weekend! This marks too all-play weekends in a row (this one with a short detour Saturday night at work, but followed by Halloween festivities). On Sunday I got on the soccer pitch after what had been about a month-long absence. It was a great game, wherein a bunch of self-involved cartoonists somehow figured out how to pass to each other and score goals. That was followed by some pizza and about six hours of The Beatles Rock Band (no lie), the latter provided by good ol’ Joe Lambert.

And in case you forgot what I did the previous weekend:

Ooohh, yipes, my friends. Things are moving and shaking in the world of your old friend Pat. I gave notice at my copy shop job so I can do a short-term video game graphics job during the summer. I’m really glad to be getting out of this. In the meantime I’m working like a madman to get my anthology together for MoCCA Fest, which is mere weeks away. I haven’t been keeping up with my workout regimen, and the Wii Fit balance board is admonishing me hard. Still, I’m finding time to go to Star Trek, which was basically the funnest summer action blockbuster since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and to draw naked ladies.

I’ve broken my covenant with the Internet! A whole week without a post! I’m into regimens and routines right now. At least one blog every week, doing ’shups even after my going clazy day. Also yesterday I got Wii Fit and the talking balance board told me to set goals for myself, with specific deadlines, so I can achieve! I’m a change agent! Speaking of which, I’m serious about the cartoon school thing, at least I think I am. At the very least I’m seriously sending off my materials next week. One of the application requirements is a comic featuring yourself, a robot, a snowman and a piece of fruit. It’s turning out pretty well; two out of three pages are done-zo. Not to brag or anything.

Golly, this might need to be scanned again, but on a real scanner. This green pen never scans well, I guess. Hell, it’s sorta hard to read on the actual paper. Nonetheless, I give you 2 Models:

I hate to impose any pretentious flower child symbolic resonance on my appearance, but I transformed myself yesterday: I pulled a Richie Tenenbaum. The only difference was that after I cut off my hair and shaved my face I didn’t slit my wrists, wake up and write a suicide note. Instead I freaked out and thought the cat disappeared. I couldn’t find her in any closets or under the bed or the couch, and when I stuck my head out the window it didn’t look like she’d fallen out, and then there she was in her regular spot under the coffee table.

I had thought I’d clean house after my renewal ritual, but I was too pumped up from the abyssopelagically cold water on my face, the long process of shaving off beard hairs that keep clogging a razor, the excitement of chopping off head hairs to myriad lengths and the terror of thinking Sheba was dead.

So I turned on the World Baseball Classic and did crunches and push-ups. Yeah! How you like me now! I hadn’t done working out in at least as long as I hadn’t shaved, which is about three years. It felt so good I popped in Wii Sports and did some boxing. Yes, that is exercising. At least the way I do it. Plus I did jumping jacks whenever my opponent or I was on the canvas. Work it! Hit it! Punch it!

Now that I don’t have a beard, I’m not trying to be a grown-up illustrator. Instead I’m a baby comic book artist. And if we make plans to meet somewhere, and some really pale 16 year-old kid starts coming at you from the crowd, it’s me.

Followers of this blog might know that I’m a Wii fanatic. I love using gestures and pointing at the screen as if I’m actually doing what the on-screen characters are doing, and I love the goofy type of games that the system attracts. Mostly I love making Miis.

After a month or so of fashioning Mii caricatures and posting them on the Check Mii Out Channel, I found myself looking at people and contemplating which features I would use from the exquisitely limited Mii palette. One lady’s eyes could be a perfect match for those really angular ones on the second page, or some guy’s hair could be decent with that pompadour-ish ‘do. (When I realized I should spend more energy drawing the specific angle of a nose than trying to find a close approximation on the Wii, I started the Celebrity Saturday series.)

I submit Miis to the weekly Check Mii Out contests (the people at Nintendo chose a theme, the people at home try to match it, and then judge which characters are the best fit). I obsess over how my little guys are doing on the Posting Plaza (the people at home toss up their best creations, and then give thumbs ups to the ones they like).

Well dudes, after a year of toiling in agony and obscurity, I’ve finally made the A List; I’m the Number 83 Mii Artisan. If I haven’t made myself clear enough, this is at least as good as discovering your high school lacrosse team is ranked among the Top 50 nationwide. It’s probably even as good as producing a movie that wins the Oscar for Best Sound Editing.

But that’s not all! Doo-oods, my Sarah Palin is tenth in the nation!!!!!!!! That’s like…! fuckin…I don’t know, say, winning six Gold Medals at the Olympics, o-kay?? [Actually, it was eight. -Precise Pat]

For realz:

I don’t what to tell youse, the Internets, except that The Office finale was awesome, and so is River City Ransom.

Here’s another drawing from last week’s Met trip. These two statues are on either side of a wide entranceway of the European Sculpture courtyard where the Academy students make those really carefully rendered drawings of the statuary. I cheated them into some close interaction, changed the angles – you know. For kicks. For narrative. For love? Everyone who sees this says it’s a drawing of Girlf Caitlin and me.

I just got the Nintendo this week. And I do mean the Nintendo. Making Miis has got to be the most fulfilling waste of time ever. Between me, my roommate and my girlfriend, my Wii is crawling with all the principals of the American The Office, a chupacabras, a cyclops, Mr. Tumnuss, a cow, Barack Obama. Miis are the most fun thing in the world. And the Check Mii Out Channel is a huge part of their fun. User-generated content! Nintendo’s on it! Showing off Miis and seeing new good ones; I don’t know if it could ever get old.

Here’s another fairly new drawing.