I hope everyone is enjoying this week's arc. I plan to keep rolling with it until either I've run out of jokes or no one wants to hear Ocean's 12 references any more.

I dunno. Ever since I did that giant month-long arc where Jimmy lost his job, I've been much less uptight about keeping Theater Hopper a gag strip. I think I've introduced enough characters at this point that the comic can stand up on its own two feet a little more. Sure it only took two and a half years to do it, but gotta walk before you can crawl, right? Sheesh...

Speaking of Ocean's 12, I'm going tonight with Cami and the rest of the family. I'm talking my parents, her parents and her sister. It's kind of this weird tradition or something now. We all went to see Ocean's 11 three years ago about this time. I think it actually came out on or near my birthday... Yup, IMDB confirms it. December 7, 2001. My birthday is on the 21st. Must have been a busy time of year for us to put it off two weeks. Or maybe we saw it twice? Who knows.

Critical response has had the air of tepid bemusement. It's not as if they can really find anything wrong with the movie, but they're all giving off this vibe like "Yeah. Yeah. This was fun, but get back to making movies more like Traffic, Mr. Soderbergh."

But honestly, who else like Soderbergh could put together a cast like this? There must be something about the way the man operates that lends him this favor with actors. All we've been hearing for months is how much fun they all had making this movie. Well, yeah. I'd be having a lot of fun, too if I was trotting all around Europe with 11 other movie stars. D

id you know the sequel was filmed for the same amount of money as the first? Or at least Soderbergh insisted as much. I don't see how that's possible considering the locations and the additions to the cast. It could all be Hollywood hogwash, actually. A nice thought to stir up interest and have people asking "How'd they do that?" before even stepping foot into the theater.

At any rate, we're going tonight.

I wanted to remind everyone that today is the last day to place a pre-order for all the cool shirts, baby doll tees and hoodies we have in the store. I'll be taking orders until midnight, so as long as I receive your payment before then, we're cool.

Actually, if there a few of you out there who are interested in purchasing the Professional Movie-Goer t-shirt or hoodie, it would be great if you could place your order now. I'm actually just a few orders shy of making the minimum order amount set by my printer.

Conversely, none of you ladies were interested in the Truman baby-doll, so I'll likely be expanding the design into tees and hoodies to meet the minimum order amount there. Naturally, I'll be extending the deadline on that one.

That's about all the self-promotion I can think about for the moment, so it's time to switch gears and promote someone else!

Misfile is our latest sponsor and it's a great anime-inspired comic about a boy accidentally turned into a girl by a hard-drinking, drug-abusing fallen angel. It's a unique concept and the pencils are awesome. Check it out!

That about does it for me today. I'll come back later if I have any other thoughts about Ocean's 12...