Sometime when it comes to adding new blog material, I will find myself at a loss. Then I remembered I have something to celebrate!

Over the weekend, I finally joined the 21st century and got myself a broadband internet connection. I was tired of slogging through the 56k trenches and proclaimed an upgrade was LONG overdue.

Of course, like everything else in my life, there were obstacles preventing me from getting broadband in my house. The dilemma were two-fold:

1.) I live in Iowa – the most technologically backwards state North of the Mason-Dixon line

2.) I live in the boonies – effectively crippling what small window I had of obtaining service.

Ultimately I went through a satellite internet service called Prairie I Net. It’s pretty cool. They attach this antenna to your house which pulls in the internet like a vortex from the upper atmosphere frequencies abandoned by UHF stations. It makes for good dinner conversation.

I love my new connection. It’s fast as hell. The only draw back is that they had to drill a hole in my house and snake a wire down from the pitch of my roof. Not exactly conspicuous. Cami said it looked very “white trash”. Ironic, sine this is actually quite a leap in technology.

Anyway, I just thought I would share the happy news.

At some point last night, Theater Hopper crossed the threshold of 5,000 unique hits to the site. This blows my friggin’ mind.

Right now, we’re averaging about 100 unique hits a day. This number is well beyond the realm of friends and relatives looking at the site. To be aware that so many people have made the site a regular stop is really cool.

It some circles, this might not seem like much of an accomplishment, but I find it very note-worthy. Let’s put it in perspective: Theater Hopper has only be operating for a little less than 2 months and has racked up over 5,000 unique hits. My other site has been around for a year this October and is still hovering around 4,500. Wow.

Sometimes it’s hard to guess just how many people are out there looking at what you do. I worry about people getting the jokes or thinking what I’m doing is lame. But to have a readership that is not only stable, but growing – well, I just wanted to say “thank you” for validating what I do.

I know I’ve talked about it in the past, but reaching this landmark has really inspired me to get working on the Bonus Materials section. If you’d like to give me some feedback on what materials to make available to the fans, please head into the forums where we can discuss it.

Once again, thanks. I’m having a blast doing this and I can’t tell you how much it pleases me to know others are along for the ride!

I know I said I would have the my last contribution to the Theater Hopper/Movie Punks Crossover ready by this afternoon, but it took a little longer to get it right. I’m happy with the results and the extra care it took to get there. Please check it out.

Once again, major props to Carrington for helping me celebrate the big 5-oh. I had a lot of fun trying to get my characters out of the sticky situations he put them in. Drawing Dexter and Seethe was a real treat.

Everyone be sure to check out the conclusion of the crossover Saturday over a Movie Punks. I can’t wait to see what solution Carrington cooks up since we hadn’t really talked about specific plot points during our collaboration.

In the meantime, I’ll see you all back in this spot Monday. Have a great weekend!

Happy 200 strips Theater Hopper!

Happy Birthday Nick!

I am looking forward to a weekend of fun. My good friend and fellow blogger Nick is turning another year older on Saturday. I am helping him celebrate by honoring him with my presence. Birthday presence.

What? …presents? …yeah, right.

::runs to store::

Anyway, we are going to see Mike Doughty in MN and plan to generally have a kick ass time.

I can already taste the Grain Belt.

Mmmmmm…

Oh, before I forget. Extra cool guy and Dayfree Press alum Jim Burgess is celebrating a milestone with his comic Able and Baker – 200 strips! Be sure to visit the site and join the celebration!

Also a big shout out to JDizzle Comics, our latest sponsor. JDizzle was off the scene for a while this summer, but is back and better than ever with a brand new web site. Check it out!

This isn’t me trying to be a big shot or anything. I just like celebrating milestones.

I checked Theater Hopper’s statistics for the month of November and we posted our biggest number of unique visitors in the history of the site – 170,124.

This blows my mind. It breaks our previous record by about 10,000 hits.

Like I said, this isn’t me trying to brag. And really, when you compare those numbers to some of the other web comics out there – several that even started after Theater Hopper – there’s not a lot of reason to call attention to it. Most sites wouldn’t want to tell you the traffic they do because it might make them look “weak” in face of the “competition.”

I don’t feel that way. I’m only in competition with myself and my prize – my validation – is to make the best comic I can. Of course I want to share my passion with others, so if there’s an audience for it, why not put it out there?

I sometimes think it’s easy to overlook exactly what those numbers mean. Frankly, I’m stunned that there is anyone out there interested enough in what I’m doing not only to visit once, but keep coming back or even mention it to their friends. Theater Hopper is growing because of the dedication and support you’ve shown and I just wanted to thank you for it.

All 170,124 of you.

This was a post I was supposed to write yesterday. But due to a hectic, stressful and overloaded schedule, it didn’t happen.

Yesterday was my son Henry’s birthday. And as I did the year before, I thought it would be nice to post a picture of the little guy so everyone can see how he’s doing.

Henry is doing very well having recently had tubes put in his ears for the second time and his adenoids removed to correct chronic ear infections he was having earlier in the winter.

Since Henry turned 2, we finally cut him off from pacifiers and we’re dealing with the ramifications of that right now. He really didn’t use them very often except when we put him down at night and he would use them to calm himself down. Now that they’re gone, he has to find other methods to relax. So he’s been shooting heroin into his eyeballs for about a week now.

I kid! I kid!

Every Saturday we take Henry to a music class where he learns rhythm, songs and dancing to a beat. It’s been paying off. He often sings “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and it’s tonal doppleganger, The ABC song.

He’s a bundle of energy, that’s for sure. HIGHLY verbal and bossing us around already. He’s deeply addicted to Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel and listening to Daft Punk in the car. In fact, he demands them by name! Well, almost. “Robot rock, Daddy!”

My son is awesome.

Happy birthday, buddy.