Once again I’m taking pot shots at my local theater, the ever-so charming Wynnsong 16.

This situation has happened to me personally more times than I care to recall. It’s also the first example I cite when theater managers get pissed at how customers bring in their own food and beverages.

I realize that managing a theater can’t be easy. But in situations where the work force is so clearly imbalanced, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that poor resource management is afoot.

I would seriously hate to consider that the ones selling tickets are being instructed not to slip behind the concessions during peek business because of a lack of training. No one gave me any pointers on how to fill a bucket of popcorn when *I* worked at a movie theater.

Whenever I run into stupid crap like this, I always say a tiny prayer to myself asking God to flatten these cursed buildings and replace them with smaller, more intimately run family theaters. I doesn’t have to be anything fancy like a tornado. Just a loose i-beam in the ceiling structure. Of course, it would have to be just after the last movie gets out, so the only one who is crushed… is the manager.

Not much movie stuff going on. I mentioned Cradle 2 the Grave in Wednesday’s post. Yawn.

Lately I’ve been keeping close tabs on some of the other sites in the community and all the celebrating that’s been going on. It makes me jealous as all get-out because I want to start doing something special with Theater Hopper. The problem is, I don’t know what.

I’ve thought about doing another crossover, maybe putting together some stickers or t-shirts, but all of it takes more planning than I have time to commit to.

Don’t read me wrong. I’m not whining about how busy I am or how little sleep I get. I sleep fine, thank you. I just haven’t come up with a promotional concept that doesn’t seem contrived in some way.

I suppose the best way to go about things is just to plug along as usual. People will find me in due time. It seems to have worked so far. Traffic for the month of February has sky-rocketed to almost 1,100,000 hits – due in no small part to the link I received from News Askew as well as the generous mentions I’ve been getting on the front pages of some big name web comics.

I get e-mail every now and again telling me I’m doing good work and I appreciate it, but I just want more. Not e-mails (although that would be nice) but more for the site. More for the fans. I wish I just had more to give you. All in due time, I suppose.

I guess I’m concerned because February has been such a windfall in terms of new readership, I don’t want to squander this opportunity.

To that end, I’m making it known right now that I will be out of town the week of March 10 and there will be no new strips between March 10 and March 16.

I’m giving everyone a head’s up now before the weekend, but I plan on letting everyone know more about it next week when there is more to tell.

I can tell you that I will be going to New York and it is a vacation. I don’t want anyone thinking things are serious. But there was an opportunity to go that came up suddenly, and we’ve decided to take it.

That means there won’t be any strips done in advance. I simply don’t have enough prep time.

HOWEVER, if there are any of you comic creators out there interested in sending me guest strips to cover for me while I’m away, I would be more than interested. There’s no reason I couldn’t have Jared upload those for me while I’m away. E-mail me if you’re looking for a little extra exposure.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I plan on doing diddly-squat with mine. I just got Xenosaga in the mail and I’ll probably be spending Saturday and Sunday wading through all the cut-scenes before the actual game play really takes off. Wish me luck!