Dear sweet heavenly host. So much has been happening. The head doth reel. To reduce to simple bullet points:

• I have now been to China, and have returned safely. So many stories to tell. Soon.
• Last weekend I attended my 10-year high school reunion, where I got to hang out with Rob and Stacey and Adam and Holly and Crystal and a whole mess of my friends from Way Back in the Day. Rob’s girlfriend is very very nice, and FWIW, I wholeheartedly approve. I miss home. A lot.
• The day after the reunion I jumped in the car with my Mom and Nick and we headed to Columbus and back, under the aegis of going shopping but really just to hang out and talk for a while. Nick and I are possibly planning something cool. Again, I miss home. A lot.
• The day after that, I loaded up my new favorite vehicle in the world, my black Mercedes Benz 190E, and headed East back to Boston. The next morning I arrived back at the house. It’s a long, long drive for one person, from Ohio to Boston. Luckily, for future trips I should have company.
• Said company arrives on a jet plane in a little over 12 hours. I am sufficiently stoked.
• I am currently feeling a little scattered, and not just from my writing this at a decently ungodly hour; I am still (!) jetlagged and still trying to sort out exactly how the next 12 months will work. I am apprehensive and uncertain and a little homesick, of all things. The gravitational pull of Ohio is strong.
• I have posted the first of what will likely be many sets of China Trip Photos to Flickr: Shanghai: Traveled Coffee & Tea. It’s a collection of photos from a fantastic little coffeeshop in China that was amazingly designed from top to bottom, full of little flourishes that I’m adding to my mental notebook for future use. Enjoy.
• The pilot episode for Mike Mignola’s Amazing Screw-On Head is now available for free viewing over at scifi.com. Seeing Mignola’s art style animated is a real delight, and I sort of wish they’d used the same style for the upcoming animated
  Hellboy movies, but I’m excited about the films nevertheless.
• I read the second issue of Neil Gaiman’s Eternals today and while it’s clearly gathering speed, it’s still not thrilling me the way I wish it would. Oh, well. I’ll buy the run out of loyalty and hope, but unless something changes drastically I probably won’t buy any follow-up series (like the 1602 follow-up, 1602: New World). The characters just aren’t that interesting – yet.
• One of my favorite new movie news sites is twitchfilm.net, and finds like this are why: “Existence: The Bastard Love-Child of Lynch, Jeunet and Gilliam”. Paging Anthony Leonardi III: good sir, when will you release this short film on DVD?
• One key event from the China trip: my laptop got nicked somewhere at LAX. I am mourning the loss of Constantine, but luckily I’d backed up almost all my data before leaving so at least I have most of its contents intact. If you’re the one who swiped my laptop at LAX, or somewhere on the Air China ride overseas… You’re a jackass. Regardless, I’m now typing this on a brand-new 2.16GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro, which I’ve tentatively named Remiel, after the angel of hope. I may name the free iPod nano that came with it Duma, both in keeping with The Season of Mists and as a bizarre joke: Duma is, after all, the angel of silence.
• I am very tired. Sleep now.

That is all. More, I’m sure, will follow.