The UK has a couple of varieties that caught my eye, Lime and Orange and Tropical Twist. I at first thought that Tropical Twist might be the same as our short lived unminted Passionfruit, however I have just noticed the package actually has mint leaves on it, so I suspect the "twist" is the mint...

I think I might splash out of the Lime and Orange though.

Also, I've yet to manage to track down anyone selling Lime Tic Tacs outside of packs of 24 or in the big 36 pack variety packs (which are still tempting me). It's mostly postage kills the fun. $2+ per box of Tic Tacs is kind of obscene.

But then so is this obsession...

Today I bought a pack of Lemon Mint and a pack of Orange Tic Tacs.

Inspired by the fact Lemon Mint tasted a little better with the Lime from Citrus Twist I though the same might be true by mixing in some Orange.

I was wrong.

The Lemon Mint flavour overpowers the Orange then fades completely to be replaced by the Orange. They never mix, they simply follow each other.

The left over slight minty-ness of the Lemon Mint sort of goes well with the Orange, but Orange by itself is better.

The Slave Labor Graphics blog has a nice commentary on the emerging market of digital comics.

Most interesting to me is their inference that single issue comics sold either in pamphlet or digital form serve only to pay for the cost of printing a graphic novel.

Thanks to Kenny for making more people aware of Eyemelt.com. I just wanted to note digital comics is not exactly a pie-in-the-sky enterprise. (Kenny writes "If I was a publisher I would be over the moon at the potential thought of a bigger online audience, generated by cheap price points, where I don’t have to share the revenue stream with old fashioned brick and mortar distribution and retail.") We are approaching it cautiously as we, like the rest of the industry, move away from pamphlets and toward graphic novels. For us digital comics are not yet a way to support the cost of printing a graphic novel, or even close to a profitable venture at present. However, as we add to Eyemelt.com's catalogue, we hope that the sales will increase as well.

I like the idea of using 99c online comics as a way to try out new stories, certainly better than $5+ real-world versions.

Unfortunately the reality of reading comics on a computer is horrendous. Unless I splashed out on a tablet PC with a fantastic high-DPI screen I just couldn't do it. Besides, such PCs are too expensive and I'm almost certain they don't exist in the kind of screen quality I'd need.

As an interesting side note, one comic I've been waiting a while for, Roman Dirge's Samurai Sloth, appears to be set to be a full graphic novel, rather than the usual publication method of various comic issues followed by a trade paperback collection.

This seems to be the direction of much of the comic industry.

Three years ago today:

I also hate the last 10% of anything. I have a swollen "that'll do" gland.

The band were about to head back into the studio for a few hours to fix up some mixing mistakes and add some extra bits.

Last night the new band jammed for the fourth time this month. I haven't been that active in rehearsals with a band since mid 2004. If you don't count gigs the last time we jammed four times in a single month was way back in June or early 2004.

I'm not at all nervous about the gig, I just want to hurry up and do it.

I look forward to having a break, and working on some demos of my solo stuff. I might even resurrect Approximate!

I need to find some good drum machine software.